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Common sense (which, in truth, is very uncommon) is the best sense I know of: abide by it it will counsel you best.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
Counsel
Uncommon
Common
Sense
Truth
Best
Abide

More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

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Cottages have them (falsehood and dissimulation) as well as courts, only with worse manners.
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No man tastes pleasures truly, who does not earn them by previous business and few people do business well, who do nothing else.
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I always put these pert jackanapeses out of countenance by looking extremely grave when they expect that I should laugh at their pleasantries and by saying Well, and so?--as if they had not done, and that the sting were still to come. This disconcerts them, as they have no resources in themselves, and have but one set of jokes to live upon.
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Our own self-love draws a thick veil between us and our faults.
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Arbitrary power has seldom... been introduced in any country at once. It must be introduced by slow degrees, and as it were step by step.
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If you will please people, you must please them in their own way.
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There is hardly any place or any company where you may not gain knowledge, if you please almost everybody knows some one thing, and is glad to talk about that one thing.
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The possibility of remedying imprudent actions is commonly an inducement to commit them.
Lord Chesterfield
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Endeavor, as much as you can, to keep company with people above you.... Do not mistake, when I say company above you, and think that I mean with regard to their birth that is the least consideration but I mean with regard to their merit, and the light in which the world considers them.
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Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
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I can hardly bring myself to caution you against drinking, because I am persuaded that I am writing to a rational creature, a gentleman, and not to a swine. However, that you may not be insensibly drawn into that beastly custom of even sober drinking and sipping, as the sots call it, I advise you to be of no club whatsoever.
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Choose your pleasures for yourself, and do not let them be imposed upon you.
Lord Chesterfield
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If you love music hear it go to operas, concerts, and pay fiddlers to play to you but I insist upon your neither piping nor fiddling yourself. It puts a gentleman in a very frivolous, contemptible light brings him into a great deal of bad company and takes up a great deal of time, which might be much better employed.
Lord Chesterfield
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Women's beauty, like men's wit, is generally fatal to the owners.
Lord Chesterfield
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Next to clothes being fine, they should be well made, and worn easily for a man is only the less genteel for a fine coat, if, in wearing it, he shows a regard for it, and is not as easy in it as if it was a plain one.
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A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners.
Lord Chesterfield
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If you are not in fashion, you are nobody.
Lord Chesterfield
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I sometimes give myself admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it.
Lord Chesterfield
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Very ugly or very beautiful women should be flattered on their understanding, and mediocre ones on their beauty.
Lord Chesterfield
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I am provoked at the contempt which most historians show for humanity in general one would think by them, that the whole human species consisted but of about a hundred and fifty people, called and dignified (commonly very undeservedly too) by the titles of Emperors, Kings, Popes, Generals, and Ministers.
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