Quote

History is but a confused heap of facts.

Lord Chesterfield

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Lord Chesterfield
Heap
Confused
History
Facts

More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

Image
I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
In matters of religion and matrimony I never give any advice because I will not have anybody's torments in this world or the next laid to my charge.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Style is the dress of thoughts, and let them be ever so just.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
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
Image
Half the business is done, when one has gained the heart and the affections of those with whom one is to transact it.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Little secrets are commonly told again, but great ones generally kept.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
The value of moments, when cast up, is immense, if well employed if thrown away, their loss is irrecoverable.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Physical ills are the taxes laid upon this wretched life some are taxed higher, and some lower, but all pay something.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Most arts require long study and application, but the most useful art of all, that of pleasing, requires only the desire.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
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
Image
Virtue and learning, like gold, have their intrinsic value: but if they are not polished, they certainly lose a great deal of their luster: and even polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
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.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Absolute power can only be supported by error, ignorance and prejudice.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
It may be objected, that I am now recommending dissimulation to you I both own and justify it. It has been long said: Qui nescitdissimular nescit regnare: I go still farther, and say, that without some dissimulation, no business can be carried on at all.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
The heart never grows better by age I fear rather worse always harder.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
A gentleman has ease without familiarity, is respectful without meanness genteel without affectation, insinuating without seeming art.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
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
Image
I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views for lies are always detected, sooner or later.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
It is hard to say which is the greatest fool: he who tells the whole truth, or he who tells no truth at all. Character is as necessary in business as in trade. No man can deceive often in either.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Ridicule is the best test of truth.
Lord Chesterfield