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Speak of the moderns without contempt and of the ancients without idolatry judge them all by their merits, but not by their age

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
Speak
Ancients
Without
Merits
Idolatry
Contempt
Merit
Judge
Judging
Age
Moderns

More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

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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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You must look into people, as well as at them.
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I find, by experience, that the mind and the body are more than married, for they are most intimately united and when one suffers, the other sympathizes.
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Sincerity w the most compendious wisdom, an excellent instrument for the speedy despatch of business. It creates confidence in those we have to deal with, saves the labor of many inquiries, and brings things to an issue in few words.
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Merit and knowledge will not gain hearts, though they will secure them when gained.
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A novel must be exceptionally good to live as long as the average cat.
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A man who cannot command his temper, his attention, and his countenance should not think of being a man of business.
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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.
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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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No man tastes pleasures truly, who does not earn them by previous business and few people do business well, who do nothing else.
Lord Chesterfield
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One of the greatest difficulties in civil war is, that more art is required to know what should be concealed from our friends, than what ought to be done against our enemies.
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Women especially as to be talked to as below men, and above children.
Lord Chesterfield
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Nothing convinces persons of a weak understanding so effectually, as what they do not comprehend.
Lord Chesterfield
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Give Dayrolles a chair.
Lord Chesterfield
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The greatest dangers have their allurements, if the want of success is likely to be attended with a degree of glory. Middling dangers are horrid, when the loss of reputation is the inevitable consequence of ill success.
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Keep your hands clean and pure from the infamous vice of corruption, a vice so infamous that it degrades even the other vices thatmay accompany it. Accept no present whatever let your character in that respect be transparent and without the least speck, for as avarice is the vilest and dirtiest vice in private, corruption is so in public life.
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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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Little secrets are commonly told again, but great ones generally kept.
Lord Chesterfield
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In order to judge of the inside of others, study your own for men in general are very much alike and though one has one prevailing passion, and another has another, yet their operations are much the same and whatever engages or disgusts, pleases or offends you, in others, will, mutatis mutandis, engage, disgust, please, or offend others, in you.
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Assurance and intrepidity, under the white banner of seeming modesty, clear the way for merit, that would otherwise be discouraged by difficulties...
Lord Chesterfield