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To know a little of anything gives neither satisfaction nor credit, but often brings disgrace or ridicule.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
Often
Disgrace
Littles
Ridicule
Anything
Satisfaction
Little
Brings
Giving
Credit
Neither
Gives
Knowledge

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I always put these pert jackanapeses out of countenance by looking extremely grave when they expect that I should laugh at their pleasantries and by saying Well, and so?--as if they had not done, and that the sting were still to come. This disconcerts them, as they have no resources in themselves, and have but one set of jokes to live upon.
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Without some dissimulation no business can be carried on at all.
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In your friendships and in your enmities let your confidence and your hostilities have certain bounds make not the former dangerous, nor the latter irreconcilable. There are strange vicissitudes in business.
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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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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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Observe any meetings of people, and you will always find their eagerness and impetuosity rise or fall in proportion to their numbers.
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Conscious virtue is the only solid foundation of all happiness for riches, power, rank, or whatever, in the common acceptation ofthe word, is supposed to constitute happiness, will never quiet, much less cure, the inward pangs of guilt.
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If you are not in fashion, you are nobody.
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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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The value of moments, when cast up, is immense, if well employed if thrown away, their loss is irrecoverable.
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If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.
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Silence and reserve suggest latent power. What some men think has more effect than what others say.
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So much are our minds influenced by the accidents of our bodies, that every man is more the man of the day than a regular and consequential character.
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Should you be unfortunate enough to have vices, you may, to a certain degree, even dignify them by a strict observance of decorumat least they will lose something of their natural turpitude.
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Health ... is the first and greatest of all blessings.
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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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When a man is once in fashion, all he does is right.
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The possibility of remedying imprudent actions is commonly an inducement to commit them.
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I would have all intoleration intolerated in its turn.
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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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