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Absolute power can only be supported by error, ignorance and prejudice.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
Absolute
Errors
Ignorance
Power
Government
Supported
Error
Prejudice
Absolutes

More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

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Nothing is more dissimilar than natural and acquired politeness. The first consists in a willing abnegation of self the second in a compelled recollection of others.
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No man can possibly improve in any company for which he has not respect enough to be under some degree of restraint.
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Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
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Many people come into company full of what they intend to say in it themselves, without the least regard to others and thus charged up to the muzzle are resolved to let it off at any rate.
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Those whom you can make like themselves better will, I promise you, like you very well.
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Love has been not unaptly compared to the small-pox, which most people have sooner or later.
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A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners.
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It must be owned, that the Graces do not seem to be natives of Great Britain and I doubt, the best of us here have more of rough than polished diamond.
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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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Merit and knowledge will not gain hearts, though they will secure them when gained.
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I am very sure that any man of common understanding may, by culture, care, attention, and labor, make himself what- ever he pleases, except a great poet.
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Whenever a man seeks your advice he generally seeks your praise.
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Our conjectures pass upon us for truths we will know what we do not know, and often, what we cannot know: so mortifying to our pride is the base suspicion of ignorance.
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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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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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Little vicious minds abound with anger and revenge and are incapable of feeling te pleasure of forgiving their enemies.
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Deserve a great deal, and you shall have a great deal deserve little, and you shall have but a little and be good for nothing atall, and I assure you, you shall have nothing at all.
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If we do not plant knowledge when young, it will give us no shade when we are old.
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If a man, notoriously and designedly, insults and affronts you, knock him down but if he only injures you, your best revenge is to be extremely civil to him in your outward behaviour, though at the same time you counterwork him, and return him the compliment, perhaps with interest.
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In the course of the world, a man must very often put on an easy, frank countenance, upon very disagreeable occasions he must seem pleased, when he is very much otherwise he must be able to accost and receive with smiles, those whom he would much rather meet with swords.
Lord Chesterfield