Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Lord Chesterfield
Enemy
Concealed
Friends
Difficulties
War
Required
Art
Civil
Done
Enemies
Difficulty
Ought
Greatest

More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

Image
Women are much more like each other than men: they have, in truth, but two passions, vanity and love these are their universal characteristics.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
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
Image
People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Merit and knowledge will not gain hearts, though they will secure them when gained.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
I sometimes give myself admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Nothing is more dissimilar than natural and acquired politeness. The first consists in a willing abnegation of self the second in a compelled recollection of others.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Good manners, to those one does not love, are no more a breach of truth, than your humble servant, at the bottom of a challengeis they are universally agreed upon, and understand to be things of course. They are necessary guards of the decency and peace of society.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
If we do not plant knowledge when young, it will give us no shade when we are old.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
A man who cannot command his temper, his attention, and his countenance should not think of being a man of business.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Learning is acquired by reading books much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various editions of them.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Dancing is, in itself, a very trifling and silly thing: but it is one of those established follies to which people of sense are sometimes obliged to conform and then they should be able to do it well. And though I would not have you a dancer, yet, when you do dance, I would have you dance well, as I would have you do everything you do well.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
People hate who makes you feel one's 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
In the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief.
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
Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Few people do business well, who do nothing else.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
I always put these pert jackanapeses out of countenance by looking extremely grave when they expect that I should laugh at their pleasantries and by saying Well, and so?--as if they had not done, and that the sting were still to come. This disconcerts them, as they have no resources in themselves, and have but one set of jokes to live upon.
Lord Chesterfield
Image
Since attaining the full use of my reason no one has ever heard me laugh.
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