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Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
Mind
Glitter
Idleness
Laziness
Refuge
Minds
Weak

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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.
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Remember, as long as you live, that nothing but strict truth can carry you through the world, with either your conscience or your honor unwounded.
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Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh.
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The world can doubtless never be well known by theory: practice is absolutely necessary but surely it is of great use to a young man, before he sets out for that country, full of mazes, windings, and turnings, to have at least a general map of it, made by some experienced traveler.
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The talent of insinuation is more useful than that of persuasion, as everybody is open to insinuation, but scarce any to persuasion.
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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.
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Nothing sharpens the arrow of sarcasm so keenly as the courtesy that polishes it no reproach is like that we clothe with a smile and present with a bow.
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A certain degree of ceremony is a necessary outwork of manners, as well as of religion it keeps the forward and petulant at a proper distance, and is a very small restraint to the sensible and to the well-bred part of the world.
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I would have all intoleration intolerated in its turn.
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Not to perceive the little weaknesses and the idle but innocent affectations of the company may be allowable as a sort of polite duty. The company will be pleased with you if you do, and most probably will not be reformed by you if you do not.
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I wish... that you had as much pleasure in following my advice, as I have in giving it.
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Polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.
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Armies, though always the supporters and tools of absolute power for the time being, are always the destroyers of it too by frequently changing the hands in which they think proper to lodge it.
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I sometimes give myself admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it.
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Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings but those who are in a state of mediocrity are best flattered upon their beauty, or at least their graces for every woman who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome.
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There is hardly anybody good for everything, and there is scarcely anybody who is absolutely good for nothing.
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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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The best way to compel weak-minded people to adopt our opinion, is to frighten them from all others, by magnifying their danger.
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A man of sense soon discovers, because he carefully observes, where and how long he is welcome and takes care to leave the company at least as soon as he is wished out of it. Fools never perceive whether they are ill timed or ill placed.
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In order to judge of the inside of others, study your own for men in general are very much alike and though one has one prevailing passion, and another has another, yet their operations are much the same and whatever engages or disgusts, pleases or offends you, in others, will, mutatis mutandis, engage, disgust, please, or offend others, in you.
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