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A man's fortune is frequently decided by his first address. If pleasing, others at once conclude he has merit but if ungraceful, they decide against him.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
Manners
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More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

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If you love music hear it go to operas, concerts, and pay fiddlers to play to you but I insist upon your neither piping nor fiddling yourself. It puts a gentleman in a very frivolous, contemptible light brings him into a great deal of bad company and takes up a great deal of time, which might be much better employed.
Lord Chesterfield
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The value of moments, when cast up, is immense, if well employed if thrown away, their loss is irrecoverable.
Lord Chesterfield
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Indifference is commonly the mother of discretion.
Lord Chesterfield
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If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition (or whatever is their prevailing passion) on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.
Lord Chesterfield
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You should not only have attention to everything, but a quickness of attention, so as to observe at once all the people in the room--their motions, their looks and their words--and yet without staring at them and seeming to be an observer.
Lord Chesterfield
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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.
Lord Chesterfield
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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.
Lord Chesterfield
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The New Year is the season in which custom seems more particularly to authorize civil and harmless lies, under the name of compliments. People reciprocally profess wishes which they seldom form and concern which they seldom feel.
Lord Chesterfield
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Women especially as to be talked to as below men, and above children.
Lord Chesterfield
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Politicians neither love nor hate. Interest, not sentiment, directs them.
Lord Chesterfield
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Style is the dress of thoughts, and let them be ever so just.
Lord Chesterfield
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Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds.
Lord Chesterfield
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Let your letter be written as accurately as you are able,--I mean with regard to language, grammar, and stops for as to the matter of it the less trouble you give yourself the better it will be. Letters should be easy and natural, and convey to the persons to whom we send them just what we should say to the persons if we were with them.
Lord Chesterfield
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Half the business is done, when one has gained the heart and the affections of those with whom one is to transact it.
Lord Chesterfield
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Human nature is the same everywhere the modes only are different.
Lord Chesterfield
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Many people come into company full of what they intend to say in it themselves, without the least regard to others and thus charged up to the muzzle are resolved to let it off at any rate.
Lord Chesterfield
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Learn to shrink yourself to the size of the company you are in. Take their tone, whatever it may be, and excell in it if you canbut never pretend to give the tone. A free conversation will no more bear a dictator than a free government will.
Lord Chesterfield
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Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
Lord Chesterfield
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Those whom you can make like themselves better will, I promise you, like you very well.
Lord Chesterfield
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Sincerity w the most compendious wisdom, an excellent instrument for the speedy despatch of business. It creates confidence in those we have to deal with, saves the labor of many inquiries, and brings things to an issue in few words.
Lord Chesterfield