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Arbitrary power has seldom... been introduced in any country at once. It must be introduced by slow degrees, and as it were step by step.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
Terrorism
Degrees
Step
Steps
Power
Introduced
Country
Arbitrary
Must
Seldom
Slow

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It seems to me that physical sickness softens, just as moral sickness hardens, the heart.
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Ceremony is necessary in Courts, as the outwork and defense of manners.
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The insolent civility of a proud man is, if possible, more shocking than his rudeness could be because he shows you, by his manner, that he thinks it mere condescension in him and that his goodness alone bestows upon you what you have no pretense to claim.
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I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide.
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To write anything tolerable, the mind must be in a natural, proper disposition provocatives, in that case, as well as in another,will only produce miserable, abortive performances.
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Little secrets are commonly told again, but great ones generally kept.
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It may be objected, that I am now recommending dissimulation to you I both own and justify it. It has been long said: Qui nescitdissimular nescit regnare: I go still farther, and say, that without some dissimulation, no business can be carried on at all.
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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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Horse-play, romping, frequent and loud fits of laughter, jokes, and indiscriminate familiarity, will sink both merit and knowledge into a degree of contempt. They compose at most a merry fellow and a merry fellow was never yet a respectable man.
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Statesmen and beauties are very rarely sensible of the gradations of their decay.
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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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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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You should not only have attention to everything, but a quickness of attention, so as to observe at once all the people in the room--their motions, their looks and their words--and yet without staring at them and seeming to be an observer.
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Sexual intercourse is a grossly overrated pastime the position is undignified, the pleasure momentary and the consequences damnable.
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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.
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Few people do business well, who do nothing else.
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We are as often duped by diffidence as by confidence.
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Half the business is done, when one has gained the heart and the affections of those with whom one is to transact it.
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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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Pocket all your knowledge with your watch, and never pull it out in company unless desired.
Lord Chesterfield