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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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Lord Chesterfield
Refused
Justify
Justness
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Mongers
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Prettiness
Experience
Confirm
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Maxim
Truth
Preferred
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Maxims

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Swift speedy time, feathered with flying hours, Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.
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To know a little of anything gives neither satisfaction nor credit, but often brings disgrace or ridicule.
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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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Love has been not unaptly compared to the small-pox, which most people have sooner or later.
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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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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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In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible laughter.
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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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Good humor is the health of the soul, sadness is its poison.
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You must labour to acquire that great and uncommon talent of hating with good breeding, and loving with prudence to make no quarrel irreconcilable by silly and unnecessary indications of anger and no friendship dangerous, in care it breaks, by a wanton, indiscreet, and unreserved confidence.
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Sincerity is the most compendious wisdom.
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A man of sense soon discovers, because he carefully observes, where and how long he is welcome and takes care to leave the company at least as soon as he is wished out of it. Fools never perceive whether they are ill timed or ill placed.
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Remember that the wit, humour, and jokes of most mixed companies are local. They thrive in that particular soil, but will not often bear transplanting.
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I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide.
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Give Dayrolles a chair.
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The heart has such an influence over the understanding, that it is worth while to engage it in our interest.
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Manners must adorn knowledge and smooth its way in the world, without them it is like a great rough diamond, very well in a closet by way of curiosity, and also for its intrinsic value but most prized when polished.
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A cheerful, easy, open countenance will make fools think you a good-natured man, and make designing men think you an undesigning one.
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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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If you have wit, use it to please and not to hurt: you may shine like the sun in the temperate zones without scorching.
Lord Chesterfield