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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

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Lord Chesterfield
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Seldom
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We are hardly ever grateful for a fine clock or watch when it goes right, and we pay attention to it only when it falters, for then we are caught by surprise. It ought to be the other way about.
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You must look into people, as well as at them.
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In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of fools and knaves who, singly from their number, must to a certain degree be respected, though they are by no means respectable.
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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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Do as you would be done by, is the surest method of pleasing.
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If you are not in fashion, you are nobody.
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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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Common sense (which, in truth, is very uncommon) is the best sense I know of: abide by it it will counsel you best.
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People hate who makes you feel one's inferiority.
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History is but a confused heap of facts.
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Our conjectures pass upon us for truths we will know what we do not know, and often, what we cannot know: so mortifying to our pride is the base suspicion of ignorance.
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One should always think of what one is about when one is learning, one should not think of play and when one is at play, one should not think of learning.
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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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To me it appears strange that the men against whom I should be enabled to bring an action for laying a little dirt at my door, may with impunity drive by it half-a-dozen calves, with their tails lopped close to their bodies and their hinder parts covered with blood.
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I knew a gentleman who was so good a manager of his time that he would not even lose that small portion of it which the calls of nature obliged him to pass in the necessary-house but gradually went through all the Latin poets in those moments.
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Speak of the moderns without contempt and of the ancients without idolatry judge them all by their merits, but not by their age
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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.
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Smooth your way to the head through the heart. The way of reason is a good one: but it is commonly something longer, and perhapsnot so sure.
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In matters of religion and matrimony I never give any advice because I will not have anybody's torments in this world or the next laid to my charge.
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You must be respectable, if you will be respected.
Lord Chesterfield