Quote

Pleasure is the rock which most young people split upon they launch out with crowded sails in quest of it, but without a compassto direct their course, or reason sufficient to steer the vessel for want of which, pain and shame, instead of pleasure, are the returns of their voyage.

Lord Chesterfield

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Lord Chesterfield
Without
Instead
Splits
Launch
People
Courses
Sail
Voyages
Course
Sufficient
Split
Pleasure
Shame
Returns
Upon
Rock
Quests
Sails
Pain
Rocks
Vessel
Steer
Young
Direct
Quest
Voyage
Reason
Return
Crowded
Steers

More quotes by 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
It must be owned, that the Graces do not seem to be natives of Great Britain and I doubt, the best of us here have more of rough than polished diamond.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Swift speedy time, feathered with flying hours, Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
People will no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
You should not only have attention to everything, but a quickness of attention, so as to observe at once all the people in the room--their motions, their looks and their words--and yet without staring at them and seeming to be an observer.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Let your letter be written as accurately as you are able,--I mean with regard to language, grammar, and stops for as to the matter of it the less trouble you give yourself the better it will be. 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
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
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
A certain degree of ceremony is a necessary outwork of manners, as well as of religion it keeps the forward and petulant at a proper distance, and is a very small restraint to the sensible and to the well-bred part of the world.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Silence and reserve suggest latent power. What some men think has more effect than what others say.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
The value of moments, when cast up, is immense, if well employed if thrown away, their loss is irrecoverable.
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
Montesquieu well knew, and justly admired, the happy constitution of this country [Great Britain], where fixed and known laws equally restrain monarchy from tyranny and liberty from licentiousness.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Never write down your speeches beforehand if you do, you may perhaps be a good declaimer, but will never be a debater.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Physical ills are the taxes laid upon this wretched life some are taxed higher, and some lower, but all pay something.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
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.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
The heart has such an influence over the understanding, that it is worth while to engage it in our interest.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Politicians neither love nor hate. Interest, not sentiment, directs them.
Lord Chesterfield