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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.
Lord Chesterfield
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Lord Chesterfield
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More quotes by Lord Chesterfield
The best way to compel weak-minded people to adopt our opinion, is to frighten them from all others, by magnifying their danger.
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Most maxim-mongers have preferred the prettiness to the justness of a thought, and the turn to the truth but I have refused myself to everything that my own experience did not justify and confirm.
Lord Chesterfield
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The power of applying attention, steady and undissipated, to a single object, is the sure mark of superior genius.
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Good manners, to those one does not love, are no more a breach of truth, than your humble servant, at the bottom of a challengeis they are universally agreed upon, and understand to be things of course. They are necessary guards of the decency and peace of society.
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Be your character what it will, it will be known, and nobody will take it upon your word.
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No woman ever yet either reasoned or acted long together consequentially but some little thing, some love, some resentment, somepresent momentary interest, some supposed slight, or some humour, always breaks in upon, and oversets their most prudent resolutions and schemes.
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Since attaining the full use of my reason no one has ever heard me laugh.
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