Philip Chesterfield Quotes

Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.

People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority.

Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh.

Dissimulate, but do not simulate, disguise your real sentiments, but do not falsify them. Go through the world with your eyes and ears open and mouth mostly shut. When new or stale gossip is brought to you, never let on that you know it already, nor that it really interests you.

There is nothing that people bear more impatiently or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.

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.

If ever a man and his wife, or a man and his mistress, who pass nights as well as days together, absolutely lay aside all good breeding, their intimacy will soon degenerate into a coarse familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust.

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;

Inferiority is what you enjoy in your best friends.