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A gentleman has ease without familiarity, is respectful without meanness genteel without affectation, insinuating without seeming art.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
Seeming
Respectful
Gentleman
Manners
Insinuating
Ease
Genteel
Art
Affectation
Without
Meanness
Familiarity

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Dispatch is the soul of business.
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Speak of the moderns without contempt and of the ancients without idolatry judge them all by their merits, but not by their age
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When one is at play, one should not think of one's learning.
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If you will please people, you must please them in their own way.
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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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Violent measures are always dangerous, but, when necessary, may then be looked on as wise. They have, however, the advantage of never being matter of indifference and, when well concerted, must be decisive.
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Not to care for philosophy is to be a true philospher.
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Prepare yourself for the world, as athletes used to do for their exercises oil your mind and your manners, to give them the necessary suppleness and flexibility strength alone will not do.
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Observe it, the vulgar often laugh, but never smile, whereas well-bred people often smile, and seldom or never laugh. A witty thing never excited laughter, it pleases only the mind and never distorts the countenance.
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I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views for lies are always detected, sooner or later.
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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.
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People will no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt.
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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.
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A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners.
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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.
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There is hardly any place or any company where you may not gain knowledge, if you please almost everybody knows some one thing, and is glad to talk about that one thing.
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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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Next to clothes being fine, they should be well made, and worn easily for a man is only the less genteel for a fine coat, if, in wearing it, he shows a regard for it, and is not as easy in it as if it was a plain one.
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Men will not believe because they will not broaden their minds.
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Sexual intercourse is a grossly overrated pastime the position is undignified, the pleasure momentary and the consequences damnable.
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