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You must labour to acquire that great and uncommon talent of hating with good breeding, and loving with prudence to make no quarrel irreconcilable by silly and unnecessary indications of anger and no friendship dangerous, in care it breaks, by a wanton, indiscreet, and unreserved confidence.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
Hate
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Anger
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Confidence
Prudence
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Love
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Always make the best of the best, and never make bad worse.
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Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds.
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Deserve a great deal, and you shall have a great deal deserve little, and you shall have but a little and be good for nothing atall, and I assure you, you shall have nothing at all.
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A cheerful, easy, open countenance will make fools think you a good-natured man, and make designing men think you an undesigning one.
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I wish... that you had as much pleasure in following my advice, as I have in giving it.
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Do as you would be done by, is the surest method of pleasing.
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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.
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The greatest dangers have their allurements, if the want of success is likely to be attended with a degree of glory. Middling dangers are horrid, when the loss of reputation is the inevitable consequence of ill success.
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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.
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Remember that the wit, humour, and jokes of most mixed companies are local. They thrive in that particular soil, but will not often bear transplanting.
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Take rather than give the tone to the company you are in. If you have parts you will show them more or less upon every subject and if you have not, you had better talk sillily upon a subject of other people's than of your own choosing.
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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.
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Lady ---- is safely delivered of a son, to the great joy of that noble family. The expression, of a woman's having brought her husband a son, seems to be a proper and cautious one for it is never said, from whence.
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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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I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views for lies are always detected, sooner or later.
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The permanency of most friendships depends upon the continuity of good fortune.
Lord Chesterfield
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If you have an hour, will you not improve that hour, instead of idling it away?
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A man who cannot command his temper, his attention, and his countenance should not think of being a man of business.
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The talent of insinuation is more useful than that of persuasion, as everybody is open to insinuation, but scarce any to persuasion.
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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