Quote

We are as often duped by diffidence as by confidence.

Lord Chesterfield

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Lord Chesterfield
Duped
Diffidence
Confidence
Often

More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

Image
Common sense (which, in truth, is very uncommon) is the best sense I know of: abide by it it will counsel you best.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
When a person is in fashion, all they do is right.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Not to perceive the little weaknesses and the idle but innocent affectations of the company may be allowable as a sort of polite duty. The company will be pleased with you if you do, and most probably will not be reformed by you if you do not.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Statesmen and beauties are very rarely sensible of the gradations of their decay.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Keep your hands clean and pure from the infamous vice of corruption, a vice so infamous that it degrades even the other vices thatmay accompany it. Accept no present whatever let your character in that respect be transparent and without the least speck, for as avarice is the vilest and dirtiest vice in private, corruption is so in public life.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
It seems to me that physical sickness softens, just as moral sickness hardens, the heart.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
The herd of mankind can hardly be said to think their notions are almost all adoptive and, in general, I believe it is better that it should be so as such common prejudices contribute more to order and quiet, than their own separate reasonings would do, uncultivated and unimproved as they are.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Love has been not unaptly compared to the small-pox, which most people have sooner or later.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Few fathers care much for their sons, or at least, most of them care more for their money. Of those who really love their sons, few know how to do it.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
If you have an hour, will you not improve that hour, instead of idling it away?
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Though we cannot totally change our nature, we may in great measure correct it by reflection and philosophy and some philosophy is a very necessary companion in this world, where, even to the most fortunate, the chances are greatly against happiness.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Endeavor, as much as you can, to keep company with people above you.... Do not mistake, when I say company above you, and think that I mean with regard to their birth that is the least consideration but I mean with regard to their merit, and the light in which the world considers them.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Sincerity is the most compendious wisdom.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
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.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
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.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Silence and reserve suggest latent power. What some men think has more effect than what others say.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Most arts require long study and application, but the most useful art of all, that of pleasing, requires only the desire.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Absolute power can only be supported by error, ignorance and prejudice.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Good manners are the settled medium of social, as specie is of commercial, life returns are equally expected for both.
Lord Chesterfield