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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.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
Proud
Civility
Alone
Shocking
Possible
Manner
Upon
Claim
Bestows
Shows
Claims
Condescension
Men
Thinks
Insolent
Thinking
Goodness
Rudeness
Mere
Pretense

More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

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In your friendships and in your enmities let your confidence and your hostilities have certain bounds make not the former dangerous, nor the latter irreconcilable. There are strange vicissitudes in business.
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Sexual intercourse is a grossly overrated pastime the position is undignified, the pleasure momentary and the consequences damnable.
Lord Chesterfield
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Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
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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Young men are as apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are to think themselves sober enough. They look upon spirit to be a much better thing than experience which they call coldness. They are but half mistaken for though spirit without experience is dangerous, experience without spirit is languid and ineffective.
Lord Chesterfield
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How often should a woman be pregnant? Continually, or hardly ever? Or must there be a certain number of pregnancy anniversaries established by fashion? What do you, at the age of forty-three, have to say on the subject? Is it a fact that the laws of nature, or of the country, or of propriety, have ordained this time of life for sterility?
Lord Chesterfield
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A man who owes a little can clear it off in a very little time, and, if he is a prudent man, will whereas a man, who by long negligence, owes a great deal, despairs of ever being able to pay, and therefore never looks into his accounts at all.
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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
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Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings but those who are in a state of mediocrity are best flattered upon their beauty, or at least their graces for every woman who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome.
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I am very sure that any man of common understanding may, by culture, care, attention, and labor, make himself what- ever he pleases, except a great poet.
Lord Chesterfield
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Arbitrary power has seldom... been introduced in any country at once. It must be introduced by slow degrees, and as it were step by step.
Lord Chesterfield
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The permanency of most friendships depends upon the continuity of good fortune.
Lord Chesterfield
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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.
Lord Chesterfield
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The power of applying attention, steady and undissipated, to a single object, is the sure mark of superior genius.
Lord Chesterfield
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We are as often duped by diffidence as by confidence.
Lord Chesterfield
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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.
Lord Chesterfield
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Ridicule is the best test of truth.
Lord Chesterfield
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Remember, as long as you live, that nothing but strict truth can carry you through the world, with either your conscience or your honor unwounded.
Lord Chesterfield
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There is hardly anybody good for everything, and there is scarcely anybody who is absolutely good for nothing.
Lord Chesterfield
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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.
Lord Chesterfield