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Indifference is commonly the mother of discretion.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
Commonly
Indifference
Wisdom
Mother
Discretion

More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

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Good manners are the settled medium of social, as specie is of commercial, life returns are equally expected for both.
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Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
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Good-breeding carries along with it a dignity that is respected by the most petulant. Ill-breeding invites and authorizes the familiarity of the most timid.
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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.
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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.
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For my own part, I would rather be in company with a dead man than with an absent one for if the dead man gives me no pleasure, at least he shows me no contempt whereas the absent one, silently indeed, but very plainly, tells me that he does not think me worth his attention.
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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.
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Patience is the most necessary quality for business, many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request.
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A novel must be exceptionally good to live as long as the average cat.
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I really think next to the consciousness of doing a good action, that of doing a civil one is the most pleasing and the epithet which I should covet the most next to that of Aristides, would be that of well-bred.
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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.
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Choose the company of your superiors whenever you can have it.
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Let them show me a cottage where there are not the same vices of which they accuse the courts.
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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.
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Instead of giving in to the greatest misfortune that can happen at my age, deafness, I busy myself in searching out all possible compensations, and I apply myself much more to all the amusements that are here within my grasp.
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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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An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.
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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.
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The more one works, the more willing one is to work.
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Sincerity is the most compendious wisdom.
Lord Chesterfield