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Ceremony is necessary in Courts, as the outwork and defense of manners.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
Defense
Necessary
Outwork
Courts
Courtesy
Ceremony
Manners

More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

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Manners must adorn knowledge and smooth its way in the world, without them it is like a great rough diamond, very well in a closet by way of curiosity, and also for its intrinsic value but most prized when polished.
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Swift speedy time, feathered with flying hours, Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.
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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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Silence and reserve suggest latent power. What some men think has more effect than what others say.
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Prepare yourself for the world, as athletes used to do for their exercises oil your mind and your manners, to give them the necessary suppleness and flexibility strength alone will not do.
Lord Chesterfield
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Little secrets are commonly told again, but great ones generally kept.
Lord Chesterfield
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Should you be unfortunate enough to have vices, you may, to a certain degree, even dignify them by a strict observance of decorumat least they will lose something of their natural turpitude.
Lord Chesterfield
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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.
Lord Chesterfield
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Real friendship is a slow grower.
Lord Chesterfield
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It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. One yawns, one procrastinates, one can do it when one will, and therefore one seldom does it at all.
Lord Chesterfield
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Merit and knowledge will not gain hearts, though they will secure them when gained.
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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A man of sense may be in haste, but can never be in a hurry.
Lord Chesterfield
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So much are our minds influenced by the accidents of our bodies, that every man is more the man of the day than a regular and consequential character.
Lord Chesterfield
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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.
Lord Chesterfield
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Horse-play, romping, frequent and loud fits of laughter, jokes, and indiscriminate familiarity, will sink both merit and knowledge into a degree of contempt. They compose at most a merry fellow and a merry fellow was never yet a respectable man.
Lord Chesterfield
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Whenever a man seeks your advice he generally seeks your praise.
Lord Chesterfield
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The heart never grows better by age I fear rather worse always harder.
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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Absolute power can only be supported by error, ignorance and prejudice.
Lord Chesterfield