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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

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Lord Chesterfield
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A man who owes a little can clear it off in a very little time, and, if he is a prudent man, will whereas a man, who by long negligence, owes a great deal, despairs of ever being able to pay, and therefore never looks into his accounts at all.
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You must be respectable, if you will be respected.
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There are some occasions in which a man must tell half his secret, in order to conceal the rest: but there is seldom one in which a man should tell it all.
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The heart has such an influence over the understanding, that it is worth while to engage it in our interest.
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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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We are really so prejudiced by our educations, that, as the ancients deified their heroes, we deify their madmen.
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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.
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Patience is the most necessary quality for business, many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request.
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Merit and knowledge will not gain hearts, though they will secure them when gained.
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Not to care for philosophy is to be a true philospher.
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Though we cannot totally change our nature, we may in great measure correct it by reflection and philosophy and some philosophy is a very necessary companion in this world, where, even to the most fortunate, the chances are greatly against happiness.
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It seems to me that physical sickness softens, just as moral sickness hardens, the heart.
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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.
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