Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Lord Chesterfield
Affections
Gained
Affection
Half
Business
Done
Heart
Transact

More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

Image
One of the greatest difficulties in civil war is, that more art is required to know what should be concealed from our friends, than what ought to be done against our enemies.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Talk often, but never long in that case, if you do not please, at least you are sure not to tire your hearers. Pay your own reckoning, but do not treat the whole company this being one of the few cases in which people do not care to be treated, every one being fully convinced that he has wherewithal to pay.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
There is hardly any place or any company where you may not gain knowledge, if you please almost everybody knows some one thing, and is glad to talk about that one thing.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
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
Image
Choose your pleasures for yourself, and do not let them be imposed upon you.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
In the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Be your character what it will, it will be known, and nobody will take it upon your word.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
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.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings but those who are in a state of mediocrity are best flattered upon their beauty, or at least their graces for every woman who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
When one is at play, one should not think of one's learning.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Love has been not unaptly compared to the small-pox, which most people have sooner or later.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
No man tastes pleasures truly, who does not earn them by previous business and few people do business well, who do nothing else.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
It is hard to say which is the greatest fool: he who tells the whole truth, or he who tells no truth at all. Character is as necessary in business as in trade. No man can deceive often in either.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
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
Image
The world can doubtless never be well known by theory: practice is absolutely necessary but surely it is of great use to a young man, before he sets out for that country, full of mazes, windings, and turnings, to have at least a general map of it, made by some experienced traveler.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
In your friendships and in your enmities let your confidence and your hostilities have certain bounds make not the former dangerous, nor the latter irreconcilable. There are strange vicissitudes in business.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
No man can possibly improve in any company for which he has not respect enough to be under some degree of restraint.
Lord Chesterfield