Quote

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

Lord Chesterfield

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Lord Chesterfield
Outwork
Courts
Courtesy
Ceremony
Manners
Defense
Necessary

More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

Image
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
Image
The heart has such an influence over the understanding, that it is worth while to engage it in our interest.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
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.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Nothing is more dissimilar than natural and acquired politeness. The first consists in a willing abnegation of self the second in a compelled recollection of others.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
To know a little of anything gives neither satisfaction nor credit, but often brings disgrace or ridicule.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Montesquieu well knew, and justly admired, the happy constitution of this country [Great Britain], where fixed and known laws equally restrain monarchy from tyranny and liberty from licentiousness.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Love has been not unaptly compared to the small-pox, which most people have sooner or later.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Real friendship is a slow grower.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Sexual intercourse is a grossly overrated pastime the position is undignified, the pleasure momentary and the consequences damnable.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
The company of women of fashion will improve your manners, though not your understanding and that complaisance and politeness, which are so useful in men's company, can only be acquired in women's.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Men will not believe because they will not broaden their minds.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Letters should be easy and natural, and convey to the persons to whom we send them just what we should say to the persons if we were with them.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
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.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
You should not only have attention to everything, but a quickness of attention, so as to observe at once all the people in the room--their motions, their looks and their words--and yet without staring at them and seeming to be an observer.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
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
Image
Almost all men are born with every passion to some extent, but there is hardly a man who has not a dominant passion to which the others are subordinate. Discover this governing passion in every individual and when you have found the master passion of a man, remember never to trust to him where that passion is concerned.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Many new years you may see, but happy ones you cannot see without deserving them. These virtue, honor, and knowledge alone can merit, alone can produce.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Let them show me a cottage where there are not the same vices of which they accuse the courts.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Few people do business well, who do nothing else.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Speak of the moderns without contempt and of the ancients without idolatry judge them all by their merits, but not by their age
Lord Chesterfield