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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...

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
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I heartily wish you, in the plain home-spun style, a great number of happy new years, well employed in forming both your mind andyour manners, to be useful and agreeable to yourself, your country, and your friends.
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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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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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Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
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You must labour to acquire that great and uncommon talent of hating with good breeding, and loving with prudence to make no quarrel irreconcilable by silly and unnecessary indications of anger and no friendship dangerous, in care it breaks, by a wanton, indiscreet, and unreserved confidence.
Lord Chesterfield
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Dispatch is the soul of business.
Lord Chesterfield
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Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings.
Lord Chesterfield
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Little vicious minds abound with anger and revenge and are incapable of feeling te pleasure of forgiving their enemies.
Lord Chesterfield
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To write anything tolerable, the mind must be in a natural, proper disposition provocatives, in that case, as well as in another,will only produce miserable, abortive performances.
Lord Chesterfield
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It is by vivacity and wit that man shines in company but trite jokes and loud laughter reduce him to a buffoon.
Lord Chesterfield
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Absolute power can only be supported by error, ignorance and prejudice.
Lord Chesterfield
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Whatever poets may write, or fools believe, of rural innocence and truth, and of the perfidy of courts, this is most undoubtedly true,--that shepherds and ministers are both men their natures and passions the same, the modes of them only different.
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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.
Lord Chesterfield
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Very ugly or very beautiful women should be flattered on their understanding, and mediocre ones on their beauty.
Lord Chesterfield
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Half the business is done, when one has gained the heart and the affections of those with whom one is to transact it.
Lord Chesterfield
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A gentleman is often seen, but very seldom heard to laugh.
Lord Chesterfield
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A certain degree of ceremony is a necessary outwork of manners, as well as of religion it keeps the forward and petulant at a proper distance, and is a very small restraint to the sensible and to the well-bred part of the world.
Lord Chesterfield
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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
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A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners.
Lord Chesterfield
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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.
Lord Chesterfield