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Never write down your speeches beforehand if you do, you may perhaps be a good declaimer, but will never be a debater.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
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More quotes by Lord Chesterfield

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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
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Observe any meetings of people, and you will always find their eagerness and impetuosity rise or fall in proportion to their numbers.
Lord Chesterfield
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Not to care for philosophy is to be a true philospher.
Lord Chesterfield
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Though we cannot totally change our nature, we may in great measure correct it by reflection and philosophy and some philosophy is a very necessary companion in this world, where, even to the most fortunate, the chances are greatly against happiness.
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The only solid and lasting peace between a man and his wife is, doubtless, a separation.
Lord Chesterfield
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If you will please people, you must please them in their own way.
Lord Chesterfield
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Common sense (which, in truth, is very uncommon) is the best sense I know of: abide by it it will counsel you best.
Lord Chesterfield
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Our self-love is mortified, when we think our opinions, and even our tastes, customs, and dresses, either arraigned or condemnedas, on the contrary, it is tickled and flattered by approbation.
Lord Chesterfield
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Wise people may say what they will, but one passion is never cured by another.
Lord Chesterfield
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Very ugly or very beautiful women should be flattered on their understanding, and mediocre ones on their beauty.
Lord Chesterfield
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A novel must be exceptionally good to live as long as the average cat.
Lord Chesterfield
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Whoever is in a hurry shows that the thing he is about is too big for him.
Lord Chesterfield
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Sincerity is the most compendious wisdom.
Lord Chesterfield
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Remember that the wit, humour, and jokes of most mixed companies are local. They thrive in that particular soil, but will not often bear transplanting.
Lord Chesterfield
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Endeavor, as much as you can, to keep company with people above you.... Do not mistake, when I say company above you, and think that I mean with regard to their birth that is the least consideration but I mean with regard to their merit, and the light in which the world considers them.
Lord Chesterfield
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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
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Physical ills are the taxes laid upon this wretched life some are taxed higher, and some lower, but all pay something.
Lord Chesterfield
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At any age we must cherish illusions, consolatory or merely pleasant in youth, they are omnipresent in old age we must search for them, or even invent them. But with all that, boredom is their natural and inevitable accompaniment.
Lord Chesterfield
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Keep your own secret, and get out other people's. Keep your own temper, and artfully warm other people's. Counterwork your rivalswith diligence and dexterity, but at the same time with the utmost personal civility to them: and be firm without heat.
Lord Chesterfield
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The insolent civility of a proud man is, if possible, more shocking than his rudeness could be because he shows you, by his manner, that he thinks it mere condescension in him and that his goodness alone bestows upon you what you have no pretense to claim.
Lord Chesterfield