Quote

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.

Lord Chesterfield

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Lord Chesterfield
Men
Seldom
Occasions
Rest
Secret
Half
Tell
Order
Must
Conceal

More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

Image
To take a wife merely as an agreeable and rational companion, will commonly be found to be a grand mistake.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
The heart has such an influence over the understanding, that it is worth while to engage it in our interest.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Women's beauty, like men's wit, is generally fatal to the owners.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Choose your pleasures for yourself, and do not let them be imposed upon you.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
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.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
The world can doubtless never be well known by theory: practice is absolutely necessary but surely it is of great use to a young man, before he sets out for that country, full of mazes, windings, and turnings, to have at least a general map of it, made by some experienced traveler.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
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.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Few people do business well, who do nothing else.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Statesmen and beauties are very rarely sensible of the gradations of their decay.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
People will no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Women are much more like each other than men: they have, in truth, but two passions, vanity and love these are their universal characteristics.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Take rather than give the tone to the company you are in. If you have parts you will show them more or less upon every subject and if you have not, you had better talk sillily upon a subject of other people's than of your own choosing.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
It is to be presumed, that a man of common sense, who does not desire to please, desires nothing at all since he must know that he cannot obtain anything without it.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Choose the company of your superiors whenever you can have it.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
A man who cannot command his temper, his attention, and his countenance should not think of being a man of business.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Few fathers care much for their sons, or at least, most of them care more for their money. Of those who really love their sons, few know how to do it.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Whoever is in a hurry shows that the thing he is about is too big for him.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
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
Image
The talent of insinuation is more useful than that of persuasion, as everybody is open to insinuation, but scarce any to persuasion.
Lord Chesterfield