List of Lord Chesterfield Quotes

Ceremony Is Necessary In Courts, As The Outwork And Defense Of Manners.

It May Be Objected, That I Am Now Recommending Dissimulation To You; I Both Own And Justify It. It Has Been Long Said: Qui Nescitdissimular Nescit Regnare: I Go Still Farther, And Say, That Without Some Dissimulation, No Business Can Be Carried On At All.

The Scholar Without Good Breeding Is A Pedant; The Philosopher, A Cynic.

Pocket All Your Knowledge With Your Watch, And Never Pull It Out In Company Unless Desired.

Every Man Is To Be Had One Way Or Another And Every Woman Almost Anyway.

The Late Président De Montesquieu Told Me That He Knew How To Be Blind--he Had Been So For Such A Long Time--but I Swear That I Do Not Know How To Be Deaf: I Cannot Get Used To It, And I Am As Humiliated And Distressed By It Today As I Was During The First Week. No Philosophy In The World Can Palliate Deafness.

An Ignorant Man Is Insignificant And Contemptible; Nobody Cares For His Company, And He Can Just Be Said To Live, And That Is All.

The French Manner Of Hunting Is Gentlemanlike; Ours Is Only For Bumpkins And Bodies. The Poor Beasts Here Are Pursued And Run Downby Much Greater Beasts Than Themselves; And The True British Fox-hunter Is Most Undoubtedly A Species Appropriated And Peculiar To This Country, Which No Other Part Of The Globe Produces.

The Possibility Of Remedying Imprudent Actions Is Commonly An Inducement To Commit Them.

Idleness Is Only The Refuge Of Weak Minds.

Our Self-love Is Mortified, When We Think Our Opinions, And Even Our Tastes, Customs, And Dresses, Either Arraigned Or Condemned;as, On The Contrary, It Is Tickled And Flattered By Approbation.

A Certain Degree Of Fear Produces The Same Effects As Rashness.