Lord Chesterfield Quotes

Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.

Never seem more learned than the people you are with. Wear your learning like a pocket watch and keep it hidden. Do not pull it out to count the hours, but give the time when you are asked.

Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.

Ridicule is the best test of truth.

Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.

A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things, but cannot receive great ones.

Common sense (which, in truth, is very uncommon) is the best sense I know of: abide by it; it will counsel you best.

As Lord Chesterfield said to his son: Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.

Young men are apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are apt to think themselves sober enough.

Advice is seldom welcome and those who need it the most like it the least.

Take care of the minutes and the hours will take care of themselves

Words are the dress of thoughts; which should no more be presented in rags, tatters, and dirt than your person should.

Many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request.

People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority.

In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it - thou art a fool.

Whoever is in a hurry shows that the thing he is about is too big for him

Think about the “timely” words of British statesman Lord Chesterfield: “Take care of the minutes, and the hours will take care of themselves.

The world can doubtless never be well known by theory: practice is absolutely necessary.

I am convinced that a light supper, a good night's sleep, and a fine morning, have sometimes made a hero of the same man, who, by an indigestion, a restless night, and rainy morning, would have proved a coward.

Lord Chesterfield said that since he had had the full use of his reason nobody had heard him laugh. I don't suppose you have read Lord Chesterfield's 'Letters To His Son'? ...Well, of course I hadn't. Bertram Wooster does not read other people's letters. If I were employed in the post office I wouldn't even read the postcards.

Honest error is to be pitied not ridiculed.

In matters of religion and matrimony I never give advice, because I will not have anybody's torments in this world or the next laid to my charge.

Chance favors the prepared mind.

Lord Peter's library was one of the most delightful bachelor rooms in London. Its scheme was black and primrose; its walls were lined with rare editions, and its chairs and Chesterfield sofa suggested the embraces of the houris. In one corner stood a black baby grand, a wood fire leaped on a wide old-fashioned hearth, and the Sèvres vases on the chimneypiece were filled with ruddy and gold chrysanthemums. To the eyes of the young man who was ushered in from the raw November fog it seemed not only rare and unattainable, but friendly and familiar, like a colourful and gilded paradise in a mediæval painting

Men, as well as women, are much oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings.” —LORD CHESTERFIELD

If you have an hour, will you not improve that hour, instead of idling it away?

In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining thou hast attained it - thou art a fool.

Secret thoughts and an open countenance will take you safely the world over

Jangan memaksa orang mendengarkan anda, sebab kalau orang tidak mau mendengarkan anda, lebih baik tutup mulut.

An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.

Courts are, unquestionably, the seats of politeness and good breeding; were they not so, they would be the seats of slaughter and desolation. Those who now smile upon and embrace, would affront and stab, each other, if manners did not interpose.

Be convinced, that there are no persons so insignificant and inconsiderable, but may, some time or other, have it in their power to be of use to you; which they certainly will not, if you have once shown them contempt. Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it for ever. (Lord Chesterfield, 1694-1773)

Common sense is the best sense I know of

Wrongs are often forgiven, but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it forever.

Take care in your minutes, and the hours will take care of themselves.

a lifelong disciple of Lord Chesterfield’s maxim that a gentleman was free to do anything he pleased as long as he did it with style.

Take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves,” Lord Chesterfield once told his son. This is the best path to gradual change.

No era Esteban hombre galante, hermoso, ni llamativo en sentido alguno; sin embargo, en la manera como aceptó el obsequio y en el modo que tuvo de darlas gracias sin excederse en palabras, había una elegancia que ni en un siglo de aleccionamiento hubiera podido lord Chesterfield enseñar a su propio hijo.

Sikap yang santun harus menghiasi orang yang berpengetahuan dan melicinkan jalannya dalam pergaulan.

Well, then, good night to you; you have no objection, I hope, to my being drunk to-night, which I certainly will be.

Conceal your learning from the company Never display your learning, but on particular occasions. Reserve it for learned men, and let even these rather extort it from you, than appear forward to display it. Hence you will be deemed modest, and reputed to possess more knowledge than you really have. Never seem wiser or more learned than your company. The man who affects to display his learning, will be frequently questioned; and if found superficial, will be ridiculed and despised; if otherwise, he will be deemed a pedant. Nothing can lessen real merit (which will always shew itself) in the opinion of the world, but an ostentatious display by its possessor.

As a man of sense never at∣tempts impossibilities, on one hand, or the other, he is never discouraged by difficulties: on the contrary, he redoubles his industry and his diligence, he perseveres, and infallibly prevails at last.

There is no living in the world without a complaisant indulgence for people's weaknesses, and innocent, though ridiculous vanities. If a man has a mind to be thought wiser, and a woman handsomer, than they really are, their error is a comfortable one to themselves, and an innocent one with regard to other people; and I would rather make them my friends by indulging them in it it, than my enemies, by endeavouring, and that to no purpose, to undeceive them.

Yet, to Orlando, such is the charm of ease and the seduction of beauty, this poor girl's talk, larded though it was with the commonest expressions of the street corners, tasted like wine after the fine phrases she had been used to, and she was forced to the conclusion that there was something in the sneer of Mr Pope, in the condescension of Mr Addison, and in the secret of Lord Chesterfield which took away her relish for the society of wits, deeply though she must continue to respect their works.

Women then are only children of a larger growth ; they have an entertaining tattle and sometimes wit , but for solid , reasoning good - sense , I never knew in my life one that had it , or who reasoned or acted consequentially for four -and-twenty hours together. Some little passion or humour always breaks in upon their best resolutions... No flattery is too high or low for them...

Remember, then, as long as you live, that nothing but strict truth can carry you through the world, with either your conscience or your honor unwounded. It is not only your duty, but your interest; as proof of which you may always observe, that the greatest fools are the greatest liars. For my own part, I judge of every man's truth by his degree of understanding. Remember that I shall see you in the summer; shall examine you most narrowly; and will never forget nor forgive those faults, which it has been in your own power to prevent or cure;

I come now to another part of your letter, which is the orthography, if I may call bad spelling orthography. You spell induce, enduce; and grandeur, you spell grandure; two faults, of which few of my house-maids would have been guilty. I must tell you, that orthography, in the true sense of the word, is so absolutely necessary for a man of letters, or a gentleman, that one false spelling may fix a ridicule upon him for the rest of his life; and I know a man of quality, who never recovered the ridicule of having spelled wholesome without the w.

Women who are either indisputably beautiful or indisputably ugly are best flattered upon the score of their understandings; but those who are in a state of mediocrity are best flattered upon their beauty, or at least their graces, for every woman who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome; but not hearing often that she is so is the more grateful and the more obliged to the few who tell her so; whereas a decided and conscious beauty looks upon every tribute paid to her beauty only as her due, but wants to shine and to be considered on the side of her understanding…

Conceal your learning from the company. Never display your learning, but on particular occasions. Reserve it for learned men, and let even these rather extort it from you, than appear forward to display it. Hence you will be deemed modest, and reputed to possess more knowledge than you really have. Never seem wiser or more learned than your company. The man who affects to display his learning, will be frequently questioned; and if found superficial, will be ridiculed and despised; if otherwise, he will be deemed a pedant. Nothing can lessen real merit (which will always shew itself) in the opinion of the world, but an ostentatious display by its possessor.

All malt liquors fatten, or at least bloat; and I hope you do not deal much in them.

A novel must be exceptionally good to live as long as the average cat. – Lord Chesterfield, eighteenth-century statesman

Courts are, unquestionably, the seats of politeness and good breeding; were they not so, they would be the seats of slaughter and desolation. Those who now smile upon and embrace, would affront and stab, each other, if manners did not interpose.... LORD CHESTERFIELD, 1694-1773

You seem to want that vivida vis animi which spurs and excites most young men to please, to shine, to excel. Without the desire and the pains necessary to be considerable, depend upon it, you never can be so. —LORD CHESTERFIELD

Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.”  ~Lord Chesterfield, Letter to His God Son

Lord Chesterfield advises his son “to speak often, but not to speak much at a time; so that if he does not please, he will not at least displease to any great extent.” Rousseau tells us, that, “persons who know little, talk a great deal, while those who know a great deal say very little.

I give my vote for Mr. Johnson to fill that great and arduous post. And I hereby declare that I make a total surrender of all my rights and privileges in the English language, as a freeborn British subject, to the said Mr. Johnson, during the term of his dictatorship. Nay more; I will not only obey him, like an old Roman, as my dictator, but, like a modern Roman, I will implicitly believe in him as my pope, and hold him to be infallible while in the chair; but no longer.

Know the true value of time: snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination; never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. Lord Chesterfield

As Lord Chesterfield, the eighteenth-century British statesman and writer, once noted, “There is time enough for everything in the course of the day if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year if you will do two things at a time.

Los errores suelen perdo- narse, pero el desprecio nunca. Nues- tro orgullo lo recuerda para siem- pre. (Lord Chesterfield, 1694-1773)

Its scheme was black and primrose; its walls were lined with rare editions, and its chairs and Chesterfield sofa suggested the embraces of the houris.

We are in truth, more than half what we are by imitation. The great point is to choose good models and to study them with care.

It is a tragic sight indeed to see Welsh parents attempting to sing traditional songs such as “Old MacDonald Had a Farm” to their children and lapsing into heart-rending silence when they get to the part about “E-I-E-I-O.” If any of you in our reading audience have extra vowels that you no longer need, because for example your children have grown up, I urge you to send them (your children) to: Vowels for Wales, c/o Lord Chesterfield, Parliament Luckystrike, the Duke of Earl, Pondwater-on-Gabardine, England.

THE REASON WHY all this has to be stated here is simply that women, who could state it much better, have almost unanimously refrained from discussing such matters at all. One finds, indeed, a sort of general conspiracy, infinitely alert and jealous, against the publication of the esoteric wisdom of the sex, and even against the acknowledgment that any such body of erudition exists at all. Men, having more vanity and less discretion, are a good deal less cautious. There is, in fact, a whole literature of masculine babbling, ranging from Machiavelli's appalling confession of political theory to the egoistic confidences of such men as Nietzsche, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Casanova, Max Stirner, Benvenuto Cellini, Napoleon Bonaparte and Lord Chesterfield. But it is very rarely that a Marie Bashkirtsev or Margot Asquith lets down the veils which conceal the acroamatic doctrine of the other sex. It is transmitted from mother to daughter, so to speak, behind the door. One observes its practical workings, but hears little about its principles. The causes of this secrecy are obvious. Women, in the last analysis, can prevail against men in the great struggle for power and security only by keeping them disarmed, and, in the main, unwarned. In a pitched battle, with the devil taking the hindmost, their physical and economic inferiority would inevitably bring them to disaster. Thus they have to apply their peculiar talents warily, and with due regard to the danger of arousing the foe. He must be attacked without any formal challenge, and even without any suspicion of challenge. This strategy lies at the heart of what Nietzsche called the slave morality--in brief, a morality based upon a concealment of egoistic purpose, a code of ethics having for its foremost character a bold denial of its actual aim.

no pierdas tiempo, hijo mio, en formar tu gusto, tus modales, tu mente y todo lo que has de tener; pues lo que, hasta cierto punto, seas a los veinte anos, eso, con poca diferencia, seras todo el resto de tu vida

It was the Riverton drawing room. Even the wallpaper was the same. Silver Studios' burgundy Art Nouveau, "Flaming Tulips," as fresh as the day the paperers had come from London. A leather chesterfield sat at the center by the fireplace, draped with Indian silks just like the ones Hannah and Emmeline's grandfather, Lord Ashbury, had brought back from abroad when he was a young officer. The ship's clock stood where it always had, on the mantelpiece beside the Waterford candelabra.

Art is man added to nature. ~ Francis Bacon An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult. ~ Lord Chesterfield We has met the enemy and he is us. ~ Pogo The best revenge is living well. The goal of human existence is to break our (savage, self-centered, animal) nature. ~ Attributed to the Vilna Gaon 'dum spiro, spero' - Enquanto respiro, tenho esperança. ~ Um lema da Carolina do Sul)

You have many faults, of course. I shall be pointing some of them out when I am at leisure. For one thing,' she said, not waiting till she was at leisure, 'you smoke too much. You must give that up when we are married. Smoking is just a habit. Tolstoy,' she said, mentioning someone I had not met, 'says that just as much pleasure can be got from twirling the fingers.' My impulse was to tell her Tolstoy was off his onion, but I choked down the heated words. For all I knew, the man might be a bosom pal of hers and she might resent criticism of him, however justified. And one knew what happened to people, policemen for instance, whose criticism she resented. 'And that silly laugh of yours, you must correct that. If you are amused, a quiet smile is ample. Lord Chesterfield said that since he had had the full use of his reason nobody had ever heard him laugh. I don't suppose you have read Lord Chesterfield's Letters To His Son?' . . .Well, of course I hadn't. Bertram Wooster does not read other people's letters. If I were employed in the post office, I wouldn't even read the postcards.

Courts are, unquestionably, the seats of politeness and good breeding; were they not so, they would be the seats of slaughter and desolation. Those who now smile upon and embrace, would affront and stab, each other, if manners did not interpose..... Lord Chesterfield