Quote

It is to be presumed, that a man of common sense, who does not desire to please, desires nothing at all since he must know that he cannot obtain anything without it.

Lord Chesterfield

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Lord Chesterfield
Men
Desire
Sense
Cannot
Presumed
Doe
Obtain
Anything
Desires
Without
Please
Nothing
Since
Must
Common

More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

Image
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.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
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.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Style is the dress of thoughts, and let them be ever so just.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Speak of the moderns without contempt and of the ancients without idolatry judge them all by their merits, but not by their age
Lord Chesterfield
Image
The company of women of fashion will improve your manners, though not your understanding and that complaisance and politeness, which are so useful in men's company, can only be acquired in women's.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
You must look into people, as well as at them.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Most arts require long study and application, but the most useful art of all, that of pleasing, requires only the desire.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Many new years you may see, but happy ones you cannot see without deserving them. These virtue, honor, and knowledge alone can merit, alone can produce.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
If originally it was not good for a man to be alone, it is much worse for a sick man to be so he thinks too much of his distemper, and magnifies it.
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
Keep your hands clean and pure from the infamous vice of corruption, a vice so infamous that it degrades even the other vices thatmay accompany it. Accept no present whatever let your character in that respect be transparent and without the least speck, for as avarice is the vilest and dirtiest vice in private, corruption is so in public life.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Good manners are the settled medium of social, as specie is of commercial, life returns are equally expected for both.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Not to perceive the little weaknesses and the idle but innocent affectations of the company may be allowable as a sort of polite duty. The company will be pleased with you if you do, and most probably will not be reformed by you if you do not.
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
Statesmen and beauties are very rarely sensible of the gradations of their decay.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Few people do business well, who do nothing else.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
A wise man will live as much within his wit as within his income.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Young men are as apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are to think themselves sober enough. They look upon spirit to be a much better thing than experience which they call coldness. They are but half mistaken for though spirit without experience is dangerous, experience without spirit is languid and ineffective.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
An honest man may really love a pretty girl, but only an idiot marries her merely because she is pretty.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible laughter.
Lord Chesterfield