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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

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Lord Chesterfield
Easy
Persons
Convey
Send
Letters
Natural

More quotes by 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.
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Swift speedy time, feathered with flying hours, Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.
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People will no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt.
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Wit is so shining a quality that everybody admires it most people aim at it, all people fear it, and few love it unless in themselves. A man must have a good share of wit himself to endure a great share of it in another.
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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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You must be respectable, if you will be respected.
Lord Chesterfield
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Choose your pleasures for yourself, and do not let them be imposed upon you.
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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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
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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
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Sincerity is the most compendious wisdom.
Lord Chesterfield
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A novel must be exceptionally good to live as long as the average cat.
Lord Chesterfield
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Physical ills are the taxes laid upon this wretched life some are taxed higher, and some lower, but all pay something.
Lord Chesterfield
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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.
Lord Chesterfield
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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.
Lord Chesterfield
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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.
Lord Chesterfield
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At any age we must cherish illusions, consolatory or merely pleasant in youth, they are omnipresent in old age we must search for them, or even invent them. But with all that, boredom is their natural and inevitable accompaniment.
Lord Chesterfield
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Polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.
Lord Chesterfield
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Always make the best of the best, and never make bad worse.
Lord Chesterfield
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Good humor is the health of the soul, sadness is its poison.
Lord Chesterfield