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Little secrets are commonly told again, but great ones generally kept.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
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More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

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Wise people may say what they will, but one passion is never cured by another.
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Compliments of congratulation are always kindly taken, and cost nothing but pen, ink and paper. I consider them as draughts upon good breeding, where the exchange is always greatly in favor of the drawer.
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The best way to compel weak-minded people to adopt our opinion, is to frighten them from all others, by magnifying their danger.
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Singularity is only pardonable in old age and retirement I may now be as singular as I please, but you may not.
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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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Good-breeding carries along with it a dignity that is respected by the most petulant. Ill-breeding invites and authorizes the familiarity of the most timid.
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Everything is worth seeing once, and the more one sees the less one either wonders or admires.
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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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Do as you would be done by, is the surest method of pleasing.
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The permanency of most friendships depends upon the continuity of good fortune.
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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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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.
Lord Chesterfield
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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.
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Merit and knowledge will not gain hearts, though they will secure them when gained.
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A man must have a good share of wit himself to endure a great share in another.
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Never write down your speeches beforehand if you do, you may perhaps be a good declaimer, but will never be a debater.
Lord Chesterfield
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People hate who makes you feel one's inferiority.
Lord Chesterfield
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I am provoked at the contempt which most historians show for humanity in general one would think by them, that the whole human species consisted but of about a hundred and fifty people, called and dignified (commonly very undeservedly too) by the titles of Emperors, Kings, Popes, Generals, and Ministers.
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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.
Lord Chesterfield
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Keep your own secret, and get out other people's. Keep your own temper, and artfully warm other people's. Counterwork your rivalswith diligence and dexterity, but at the same time with the utmost personal civility to them: and be firm without heat.
Lord Chesterfield