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Men have various subjects in which they may excel, or at least would be thought to excel, and though they love to hear justice done to them where they know they excel, yet they are most and best flattered upon those points where they wish to excel and yet are doubtful whether they do or not.

Lord Chesterfield

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Lord Chesterfield
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The New Year is the season in which custom seems more particularly to authorize civil and harmless lies, under the name of compliments. People reciprocally profess wishes which they seldom form and concern which they seldom feel.
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Absolute power can only be supported by error, ignorance and prejudice.
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I am very sure that any man of common understanding may, by culture, care, attention, and labor, make himself what- ever he pleases, except a great poet.
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Deserve a great deal, and you shall have a great deal deserve little, and you shall have but a little and be good for nothing atall, and I assure you, you shall have nothing at all.
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The more one works, the more willing one is to work.
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When one is at play, one should not think of one's learning.
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One should always think of what one is about when one is learning, one should not think of play and when one is at play, one should not think of learning.
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Give Dayrolles a chair.
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To take a wife merely as an agreeable and rational companion, will commonly be found to be a grand mistake.
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Women are much more like each other than men: they have, in truth, but two passions, vanity and love these are their universal characteristics.
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Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh.
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