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Nothing is more dissimilar than natural and acquired politeness. The first consists in a willing abnegation of self the second in a compelled recollection of others.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
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Politeness
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Good manners, to those one does not love, are no more a breach of truth, than your humble servant, at the bottom of a challengeis they are universally agreed upon, and understand to be things of course. They are necessary guards of the decency and peace of society.
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A gentleman has ease without familiarity, is respectful without meanness genteel without affectation, insinuating without seeming art.
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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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An honest man may really love a pretty girl, but only an idiot marries her merely because she is pretty.
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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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Good breeding and good nature do incline us rather to help and raise people up to ourselves, than to mortify and depress them, and, in truth, our own private interest concurs in it, as it is making ourselves so many friends, instead of so many enemies.
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The heart has such an influence over the understanding, that it is worth while to engage it in our interest.
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It is hard to say which is the greatest fool: he who tells the whole truth, or he who tells no truth at all. Character is as necessary in business as in trade. No man can deceive often in either.
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Ridicule is the best test of truth.
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Ceremony is necessary in Courts, as the outwork and defense of manners.
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A gentleman is often seen, but very seldom heard to laugh.
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Dancing is, in itself, a very trifling and silly thing: but it is one of those established follies to which people of sense are sometimes obliged to conform and then they should be able to do it well. And though I would not have you a dancer, yet, when you do dance, I would have you dance well, as I would have you do everything you do well.
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Pocket all your knowledge with your watch, and never pull it out in company unless desired.
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To take a wife merely as an agreeable and rational companion, will commonly be found to be a grand mistake.
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Armies, though always the supporters and tools of absolute power for the time being, are always the destroyers of it too by frequently changing the hands in which they think proper to lodge it.
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You must look into people, as well as at them.
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In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of fools and knaves who, singly from their number, must to a certain degree be respected, though they are by no means respectable.
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A novel must be exceptionally good to live as long as the average cat.
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Give Dayrolles a chair.
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In friendship, as well as in love, the mind is often the dupe of the heart.
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