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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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Love has been not unaptly compared to the small-pox, which most people have sooner or later.
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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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I heartily wish you, in the plain home-spun style, a great number of happy new years, well employed in forming both your mind andyour manners, to be useful and agreeable to yourself, your country, and your friends.
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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.
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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
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If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.
Lord Chesterfield
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Horse-play, romping, frequent and loud fits of laughter, jokes, and indiscriminate familiarity, will sink both merit and knowledge into a degree of contempt. They compose at most a merry fellow and a merry fellow was never yet a respectable man.
Lord Chesterfield
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You must look into people, as well as at them.
Lord Chesterfield
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Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
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Pocket all your knowledge with your watch, and never pull it out in company unless desired.
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In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible laughter.
Lord Chesterfield
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Most arts require long study and application, but the most useful art of all, that of pleasing, requires only the desire.
Lord Chesterfield
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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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The only solid and lasting peace between a man and his wife is, doubtless, a separation.
Lord Chesterfield
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At any age we must cherish illusions, consolatory or merely pleasant in youth, they are omnipresent in old age we must search for them, or even invent them. But with all that, boredom is their natural and inevitable accompaniment.
Lord Chesterfield
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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
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An honest man may really love a pretty girl, but only an idiot marries her merely because she is pretty.
Lord Chesterfield
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A wise man will live as much within his wit as within his income.
Lord Chesterfield
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I can hardly bring myself to caution you against drinking, because I am persuaded that I am writing to a rational creature, a gentleman, and not to a swine. However, that you may not be insensibly drawn into that beastly custom of even sober drinking and sipping, as the sots call it, I advise you to be of no club whatsoever.
Lord Chesterfield
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Loud laughter is the mirth of the mob, who are only pleased with silly things for true Wit or good Sense never excited a laugh since the creation of the world. A man of parts and fashion is therefore often seen to smile, but never heard to laugh.
Lord Chesterfield