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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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Lord Chesterfield
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More quotes by 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.
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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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If you will please people, you must please them in their own way and as you cannot make them what they should be, you must take them as they are.
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To know a little of anything gives neither satisfaction nor credit, but often brings disgrace or ridicule.
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No woman ever yet either reasoned or acted long together consequentially but some little thing, some love, some resentment, somepresent momentary interest, some supposed slight, or some humour, always breaks in upon, and oversets their most prudent resolutions and schemes.
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Merit and knowledge will not gain hearts, though they will secure them when gained.
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Be wiser than other people if you can but do not tell them so.
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Almost all men are born with every passion to some extent, but there is hardly a man who has not a dominant passion to which the others are subordinate. Discover this governing passion in every individual and when you have found the master passion of a man, remember never to trust to him where that passion is concerned.
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Always make the best of the best, and never make bad worse.
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In friendship, as well as in love, the mind is often the dupe of the heart.
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No man can possibly improve in any company for which he has not respect enough to be under some degree of restraint.
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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?
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Our self-love is mortified, when we think our opinions, and even our tastes, customs, and dresses, either arraigned or condemnedas, on the contrary, it is tickled and flattered by approbation.
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Knowledge of the world in only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.
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Sincerity is the most compendious wisdom.
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The possibility of remedying imprudent actions is commonly an inducement to commit them.
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Many new years you may see, but happy ones you cannot see without deserving them. These virtue, honor, and knowledge alone can merit, alone can produce.
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Pleasure is a necessary reciprocal. No one feels, who does not at the same time give it. To be pleased, one must please. What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you.
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Women's beauty, like men's wit, is generally fatal to the owners.
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Be your character what it will, it will be known, and nobody will take it upon your word.
Lord Chesterfield