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Nothing sharpens the arrow of sarcasm so keenly as the courtesy that polishes it no reproach is like that we clothe with a smile and present with a bow.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
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More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

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Never write down your speeches beforehand if you do, you may perhaps be a good declaimer, but will never be a debater.
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Wit is so shining a quality that everybody admires it most people aim at it, all people fear it, and few love it unless in themselves. A man must have a good share of wit himself to endure a great share of it in another.
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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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Smooth your way to the head through the heart. The way of reason is a good one: but it is commonly something longer, and perhapsnot so sure.
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In friendship, as well as in love, the mind is often the dupe of the heart.
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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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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Not to care for philosophy is to be a true philospher.
Lord Chesterfield
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Let them show me a cottage where there are not the same vices of which they accuse the courts.
Lord Chesterfield
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I sometimes give myself admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it.
Lord Chesterfield
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The only solid and lasting peace between a man and his wife is, doubtless, a separation.
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If you will please people, you must please them in their own way and as you cannot make them what they should be, you must take them as they are.
Lord Chesterfield
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People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority.
Lord Chesterfield
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The heart never grows better by age I fear rather worse always harder.
Lord Chesterfield
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Compliments of congratulation are always kindly taken, and cost nothing but pen, ink and paper. I consider them as draughts upon good breeding, where the exchange is always greatly in favor of the drawer.
Lord Chesterfield
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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.
Lord Chesterfield
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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.
Lord Chesterfield
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Be your character what it will, it will be known, and nobody will take it upon your word.
Lord Chesterfield
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We are hardly ever grateful for a fine clock or watch when it goes right, and we pay attention to it only when it falters, for then we are caught by surprise. It ought to be the other way about.
Lord Chesterfield
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Wear your knowledge like your watch - in you pocket - and don't pull it out just for show.
Lord Chesterfield