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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.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
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The insolent civility of a proud man is, if possible, more shocking than his rudeness could be because he shows you, by his manner, that he thinks it mere condescension in him and that his goodness alone bestows upon you what you have no pretense to claim.
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Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds.
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I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide.
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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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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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Women's beauty, like men's wit, is generally fatal to the owners.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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A cheerful, easy, open countenance will make fools think you a good-natured man, and make designing men think you an undesigning one.
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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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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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I am convinced that a light supper, a good night's sleep, and a fine morning, have sometimes made a hero of the same man, who, by an indigestion, a restless night, and rainy morning, would have proved a coward.
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Many people come into company full of what they intend to say in it themselves, without the least regard to others and thus charged up to the muzzle are resolved to let it off at any rate.
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Whenever a man seeks your advice he generally seeks your praise.
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Assurance and intrepidity, under the white banner of seeming modesty, clear the way for merit, that would otherwise be discouraged by difficulties...
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Women especially as to be talked to as below men, and above children.
Lord Chesterfield
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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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Since attaining the full use of my reason no one has ever heard me laugh.
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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