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I am very sure that any man of common understanding may, by culture, care, attention, and labor, make himself what- ever he pleases, except a great poet.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
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For my own part, I would rather be in company with a dead man than with an absent one for if the dead man gives me no pleasure, at least he shows me no contempt whereas the absent one, silently indeed, but very plainly, tells me that he does not think me worth his attention.
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Most maxim-mongers have preferred the prettiness to the justness of a thought, and the turn to the truth but I have refused myself to everything that my own experience did not justify and confirm.
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Armies, though always the supporters and tools of absolute power for the time being, are always the destroyers of it too by frequently changing the hands in which they think proper to lodge it.
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Lady ---- is safely delivered of a son, to the great joy of that noble family. The expression, of a woman's having brought her husband a son, seems to be a proper and cautious one for it is never said, from whence.
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Pocket all your knowledge with your watch, and never pull it out in company unless desired.
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Sincerity w the most compendious wisdom, an excellent instrument for the speedy despatch of business. It creates confidence in those we have to deal with, saves the labor of many inquiries, and brings things to an issue in few words.
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Love has been not unaptly compared to the small-pox, which most people have sooner or later.
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I am convinced that a light supper, a good night's sleep, and a fine morning, have sometimes made a hero of the same man, who, by an indigestion, a restless night, and rainy morning, would have proved a coward.
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Style is the dress of thoughts, and let them be ever so just.
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I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views for lies are always detected, sooner or later.
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Many people come into company full of what they intend to say in it themselves, without the least regard to others and thus charged up to the muzzle are resolved to let it off at any rate.
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Observe it, the vulgar often laugh, but never smile, whereas well-bred people often smile, and seldom or never laugh. A witty thing never excited laughter, it pleases only the mind and never distorts the countenance.
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The difference between a man of sense and a fop is that the fop values himself upon his dress and the man of sense laughs at it, at the same time he knows he must not neglect it.
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There are people who indulge themselves in a sort of lying, which they reckon innocent, and which in one sense is so for it hurtsnobody but themselves. This sort of lying is the spurious offspring of vanity, begotten upon folly.
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The heart never grows better by age I fear rather worse always harder.
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Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
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Singularity is only pardonable in old age and retirement I may now be as singular as I please, but you may not.
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It seems to me that physical sickness softens, just as moral sickness hardens, the heart.
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A man of sense may be in haste, but can never be in a hurry.
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