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We are as often duped by diffidence as by confidence.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
Often
Duped
Diffidence
Confidence

More quotes by 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.
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If a man, notoriously and designedly, insults and affronts you, knock him down but if he only injures you, your best revenge is to be extremely civil to him in your outward behaviour, though at the same time you counterwork him, and return him the compliment, perhaps with interest.
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Choose the company of your superiors whenever you can have it.
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When one is at play, one should not think of one's learning.
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Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings.
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For my own part, I would rather be in company with a dead man than with an absent one for if the dead man gives me no pleasure, at least he shows me no contempt whereas the absent one, silently indeed, but very plainly, tells me that he does not think me worth his attention.
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No man tastes pleasures truly, who does not earn them by previous business and few people do business well, who do nothing else.
Lord Chesterfield
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Learning is acquired by reading books much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various editions of them.
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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Silence and reserve suggest latent power. What some men think has more effect than what others say.
Lord Chesterfield
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I always put these pert jackanapeses out of countenance by looking extremely grave when they expect that I should laugh at their pleasantries and by saying Well, and so?--as if they had not done, and that the sting were still to come. This disconcerts them, as they have no resources in themselves, and have but one set of jokes to live upon.
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Virtue and learning, like gold, have their intrinsic value: but if they are not polished, they certainly lose a great deal of their luster: and even polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.
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.
Lord Chesterfield
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Men will not believe because they will not broaden their minds.
Lord Chesterfield
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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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When a person is in fashion, all they do is right.
Lord Chesterfield
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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.
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Conscious virtue is the only solid foundation of all happiness for riches, power, rank, or whatever, in the common acceptation ofthe word, is supposed to constitute happiness, will never quiet, much less cure, the inward pangs of guilt.
Lord Chesterfield
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Nothing convinces persons of a weak understanding so effectually, as what they do not comprehend.
Lord Chesterfield
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Since attaining the full use of my reason no one has ever heard me laugh.
Lord Chesterfield