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To write anything tolerable, the mind must be in a natural, proper disposition provocatives, in that case, as well as in another,will only produce miserable, abortive performances.

Lord Chesterfield

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Most maxim-mongers have preferred the prettiness to the justness of a thought, and the turn to the truth but I have refused myself to everything that my own experience did not justify and confirm.
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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.
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It may be objected, that I am now recommending dissimulation to you I both own and justify it. It has been long said: Qui nescitdissimular nescit regnare: I go still farther, and say, that without some dissimulation, no business can be carried on at all.
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Whatever poets may write, or fools believe, of rural innocence and truth, and of the perfidy of courts, this is most undoubtedly true,--that shepherds and ministers are both men their natures and passions the same, the modes of them only different.
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Always make the best of the best, and never make bad worse.
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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.
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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.
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Women especially as to be talked to as below men, and above children.
Lord Chesterfield
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Endeavor, as much as you can, to keep company with people above you.... Do not mistake, when I say company above you, and think that I mean with regard to their birth that is the least consideration but I mean with regard to their merit, and the light in which the world considers them.
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Choose your pleasures for yourself, and do not let them be imposed upon you.
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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An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.
Lord Chesterfield
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The insolent civility of a proud man is, if possible, more shocking than his rudeness could be because he shows you, by his manner, that he thinks it mere condescension in him and that his goodness alone bestows upon you what you have no pretense to claim.
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Violent measures are always dangerous, but, when necessary, may then be looked on as wise. They have, however, the advantage of never being matter of indifference and, when well concerted, must be decisive.
Lord Chesterfield
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People hate who makes you feel one's inferiority.
Lord Chesterfield
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In order to judge of the inside of others, study your own for men in general are very much alike and though one has one prevailing passion, and another has another, yet their operations are much the same and whatever engages or disgusts, pleases or offends you, in others, will, mutatis mutandis, engage, disgust, please, or offend others, in you.
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Little vicious minds abound with anger and revenge and are incapable of feeling te pleasure of forgiving their enemies.
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Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
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Absolute power can only be supported by error, ignorance and prejudice.
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Sexual intercourse is a grossly overrated pastime the position is undignified, the pleasure momentary and the consequences damnable.
Lord Chesterfield