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

More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

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Statesmen and beauties are very rarely sensible of the gradations of their decay.
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There is hardly any place or any company where you may not gain knowledge, if you please almost everybody knows some one thing, and is glad to talk about that one thing.
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Letters should be easy and natural, and convey to the persons to whom we send them just what we should say to the persons if we were with them.
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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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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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Good manners are the settled medium of social, as specie is of commercial, life returns are equally expected for both.
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People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority.
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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.
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Lady ---- is safely delivered of a son, to the great joy of that noble family. The expression, of a woman's having brought her husband a son, seems to be a proper and cautious one for it is never said, from whence.
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Learn to shrink yourself to the size of the company you are in. Take their tone, whatever it may be, and excell in it if you canbut never pretend to give the tone. A free conversation will no more bear a dictator than a free government will.
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I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide.
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Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings but those who are in a state of mediocrity are best flattered upon their beauty, or at least their graces for every woman who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome.
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Wear your knowledge like your watch - in you pocket - and don't pull it out just for show.
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The herd of mankind can hardly be said to think their notions are almost all adoptive and, in general, I believe it is better that it should be so as such common prejudices contribute more to order and quiet, than their own separate reasonings would do, uncultivated and unimproved as they are.
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Choose the company of your superiors whenever you can have it.
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You must be respectable, if you will be respected.
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Talk often, but never long in that case, if you do not please, at least you are sure not to tire your hearers. Pay your own reckoning, but do not treat the whole company this being one of the few cases in which people do not care to be treated, every one being fully convinced that he has wherewithal to pay.
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A gentleman is often seen, but very seldom heard to laugh.
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A man's fortune is frequently decided by his first address. If pleasing, others at once conclude he has merit but if ungraceful, they decide against him.
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Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not merely pull it out and strike it merely to show that you have one.
Lord Chesterfield