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Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
Refuge
Minds
Weak
Mind
Glitter
Idleness
Laziness

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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.
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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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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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Let your letter be written as accurately as you are able,--I mean with regard to language, grammar, and stops for as to the matter of it the less trouble you give yourself the better it will be. 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.
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Violent measures are always dangerous, but, when necessary, may then be looked on as wise. They have, however, the advantage of never being matter of indifference and, when well concerted, must be decisive.
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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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Good-breeding carries along with it a dignity that is respected by the most petulant. Ill-breeding invites and authorizes the familiarity of the most timid.
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Merit and knowledge will not gain hearts, though they will secure them when gained.
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Whoever is in a hurry shows that the thing he is about is too big for him.
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Pleasure is a necessary reciprocal. No one feels, who does not at the same time give it. To be pleased, one must please. What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you.
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Pocket all your knowledge with your watch, and never pull it out in company unless desired.
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If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.
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When one is at play, one should not think of one's learning.
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Choose your pleasures for yourself, and do not let them be imposed upon you.
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If originally it was not good for a man to be alone, it is much worse for a sick man to be so he thinks too much of his distemper, and magnifies it.
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Young men are as apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are to think themselves sober enough. They look upon spirit to be a much better thing than experience which they call coldness. They are but half mistaken for though spirit without experience is dangerous, experience without spirit is languid and ineffective.
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If you will please people, you must please them in their own way and as you cannot make them what they should be, you must take them as they are.
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