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Statesmen and beauties are very rarely sensible of the gradations of their decay.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
Age
Gradations
Beauties
Statesmen
Decay
Sensible
Rarely
Youth

More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

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The only solid and lasting peace between a man and his wife is, doubtless, a separation.
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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.
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Distrust those who love you extremely upon a slight acquaintance, and without any visible reason.
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A man must have a good share of wit himself to endure a great share in another.
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Learn to shrink yourself to the size of the company you are in. Take their tone, whatever it may be, and excell in it if you canbut never pretend to give the tone. A free conversation will no more bear a dictator than a free government will.
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There is a sort of veteran women of condition, who, having lived always in the grand mode, and having possibly had some gallantries, together with the experience of five and twenty or thirty years, form a young fellow better than all the rules that can be given him.
Lord Chesterfield
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In the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief.
Lord Chesterfield
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You must be respectable, if you will be respected.
Lord Chesterfield
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The heart never grows better by age I fear rather worse, always harder. A young liar will be an old one, and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.
Lord Chesterfield
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Choose the company of your superiors whenever you can have it.
Lord Chesterfield
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Keep your hands clean and pure from the infamous vice of corruption, a vice so infamous that it degrades even the other vices thatmay accompany it. Accept no present whatever let your character in that respect be transparent and without the least speck, for as avarice is the vilest and dirtiest vice in private, corruption is so in public life.
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Remember that whatever knowledge you do not solidly lay the foundation of before you are eighteen, you will never be master of while you breathe.
Lord Chesterfield
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The herd of mankind can hardly be said to think their notions are almost all adoptive and, in general, I believe it is better that it should be so as such common prejudices contribute more to order and quiet, than their own separate reasonings would do, uncultivated and unimproved as they are.
Lord Chesterfield
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Knowledge of the world in only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.
Lord Chesterfield
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The New Year is the season in which custom seems more particularly to authorize civil and harmless lies, under the name of compliments. People reciprocally profess wishes which they seldom form and concern which they seldom feel.
Lord Chesterfield
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Talk often, but never long in that case, if you do not please, at least you are sure not to tire your hearers. Pay your own reckoning, but do not treat the whole company this being one of the few cases in which people do not care to be treated, every one being fully convinced that he has wherewithal to pay.
Lord Chesterfield
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The greatest dangers have their allurements, if the want of success is likely to be attended with a degree of glory. Middling dangers are horrid, when the loss of reputation is the inevitable consequence of ill success.
Lord Chesterfield
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To know a little of anything gives neither satisfaction nor credit, but often brings disgrace or ridicule.
Lord Chesterfield
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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.
Lord Chesterfield
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One of the greatest difficulties in civil war is, that more art is required to know what should be concealed from our friends, than what ought to be done against our enemies.
Lord Chesterfield