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Ridicule is the best test of truth.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
Ridicule
Test
Tests
Truth
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More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

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Observe it, the vulgar often laugh, but never smile, whereas well-bred people often smile, and seldom or never laugh. A witty thing never excited laughter, it pleases only the mind and never distorts the countenance.
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We are as often duped by diffidence as by confidence.
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Everything is worth seeing once, and the more one sees the less one either wonders or admires.
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The permanency of most friendships depends upon the continuity of good fortune.
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Statesmen and beauties are very rarely sensible of the gradations of their decay.
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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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Wise people may say what they will, but one passion is never cured by another.
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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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Remember that whatever knowledge you do not solidly lay the foundation of before you are eighteen, you will never be master of while you breathe.
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People will no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt.
Lord Chesterfield
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I sometimes give myself admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it.
Lord Chesterfield
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Be your character what it will, it will be known, and nobody will take it upon your word.
Lord Chesterfield
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Common sense (which, in truth, is very uncommon) is the best sense I know of: abide by it it will counsel you best.
Lord Chesterfield
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Dancing is, in itself, a very trifling and silly thing: but it is one of those established follies to which people of sense are sometimes obliged to conform and then they should be able to do it well. And though I would not have you a dancer, yet, when you do dance, I would have you dance well, as I would have you do everything you do well.
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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.
Lord Chesterfield
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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.
Lord Chesterfield
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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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Knowledge of the world in only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.
Lord Chesterfield
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Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
Lord Chesterfield
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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.
Lord Chesterfield