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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.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
Open
Everybody
Insinuation
Scarce
Persuasion
Gossip
Propaganda
Useful
Talent

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The heart never grows better by age I fear rather worse always harder.
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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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A man of sense may be in haste, but can never be in a hurry.
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When a man is once in fashion, all he does is right.
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Armies, though always the supporters and tools of absolute power for the time being, are always the destroyers of it too by frequently changing the hands in which they think proper to lodge it.
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Whenever a man seeks your advice he generally seeks your praise.
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Do as you would be done by, is the surest method of pleasing.
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Manners must adorn knowledge and smooth its way in the world, without them it is like a great rough diamond, very well in a closet by way of curiosity, and also for its intrinsic value but most prized when polished.
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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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No man tastes pleasures truly, who does not earn them by previous business and few people do business well, who do nothing else.
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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.
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Whoever is in a hurry shows that the thing he is about is too big for him.
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A man of sense soon discovers, because he carefully observes, where and how long he is welcome and takes care to leave the company at least as soon as he is wished out of it. Fools never perceive whether they are ill timed or ill placed.
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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.
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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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Since attaining the full use of my reason no one has ever heard me laugh.
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People will no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt.
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