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Lord Chesterfield Quotes - Page 9

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Arbitrary power has seldom... been introduced in any country at once. It must be introduced by slow degrees, and as it were step by step.

Arbitrary power has seldom... been introduced in any country at once. It must be introduced by slow degrees, and as it were step by step.

Lord Chesterfield
Country, Power, Degrees

The permanency of most friendships depends upon the continuity of good fortune.

Lord Chesterfield
Friendship, Fortune, Continuity
Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield (1855). “The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author”, p.630

Frequent and loud laughter is the characteristic of folly and ill manners.

Lord Chesterfield
Happiness, Laughter, Joy
Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.72, Oxford University Press

History is but a confused heap of facts.

Lord Chesterfield
Confused, History, Facts

Unlike my subject will I frame my song, It shall be witty and it shan't be long.

Lord Chesterfield
Witty, Song, Long
Epigram on 'Long' Sir Thomas Robinson in the 'Dictionary of National Biography'

Buy good books, and read them; the best books are the commonest, and the last editions are always the best, if the editors are not blockheads.

Lord Chesterfield
Book, Reading, Editors
Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.201, Oxford University Press

Human nature is the same everywhere; the modes only are different.

Lord Chesterfield
Different, Human Nature, Humans
Lord Chesterfield (1998). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.416, OUP Oxford

Not to care for philosophy is to be a true philospher.

Lord Chesterfield
Wise, Philosophy, Care

He adorned whatever subject he either spoke or wrote upon, by the most splendid eloquence.

Lord Chesterfield
Inspirational, Character, Splendid
"Character of Bolingbroke"; reported in "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations", 10th ed. (1919),

It seems to me that physical sickness softens, just as moral sickness hardens, the heart.

Lord Chesterfield
Heart, Moral, Sickness

The heart has such an influence over the understanding, that it is worth while to engage it in our interest.

Lord Chesterfield
Heart, Understanding, Influence
Lord Chesterfield (2008). “The Modern Chesterfield”, p.78, Wildside Press LLC

The vulgar only laugh, but never smile; whereas well-bred people often smile, but seldom laugh.

Lord Chesterfield
Laughter, People, Laughing
Letter to his son, February 17, 1754.

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
Laughing, Done, Resources

You must embrace the man you hate, if you cannot be justified in knocking him down.

Lord Chesterfield
Hate, Men, Justified
Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield (1855). “The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author”, p.499

Next to doing things that deserve to be written, nothing gets a man more credit, or gives him more pleasure than to write things that deserve to be read.

Lord Chesterfield
Writing, Men, Giving

I often wish for the end of the wretched remnant of my life; and that wish is a rational one; but then the innate principle of self-preservation, wisely implanted in our natures, for obvious purposes, opposes that wish, and makes us endeavour to spin out our thread as long as we can, however decayed and rotten it may be.

Lord Chesterfield
Death, Self, Long

Our prejudices are our mistresses; reason is at best our wife, very often heard indeed, but seldom minded.

Lord Chesterfield
Wife, Mistress, Prejudice
Lord Chesterfield (1998). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.292, OUP Oxford

We are really so prejudiced by our educations, that, as the ancients deified their heroes, we deify their madmen.

Lord Chesterfield
Hero, Prejudice, Madmen
Lord Chesterfield (2008). “The Modern Chesterfield”, p.76, Wildside Press LLC

The receipt to make a speaker, and an applauded one too, is short and easy. Take common sense quantum sufficit; add a little application to the rules and orders of the House [of Commons], throw obvious thoughts in a new light, and make up the whole with a large quantity of purity, correctness and elegancy of style. Take it for granted that by far the greatest part of mankind neither analyze nor search to the bottom; they are incapable of penetrating deeper than the surface.

Lord Chesterfield
Order, Light, Common Sense
Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.296, Oxford University Press

Dispatch is the soul of business.

Lord Chesterfield
Business, Soul
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman, February 5, 1750.

Let this be one invariable rule of your conduct--never to show the least symptom of resentment, which you cannot, to a certain degree, gratify; but always to smile, where you cannot strike.

Lord Chesterfield
Smile, Patience, Degrees
Lord Chesterfield, David Roberts (2008). “Lord Chesterfield's Letters”, p.302, Oxford University Press

Give nobly to indigent merit, and do not refuse your charity even to those who have not merit but their misery.

Lord Chesterfield
Giving, Charity, Merit

The vulgar look upon a man, who is reckoned a fine speaker, as a phenomenon, a supernatural being, and endowed with some peculiargift of Heaven; they stare at him, if he walks in the park, and cry, that is he. You will, I am sure, view him in a juster light, and nulla formidine. You will consider him only as a man of good sense, who adorns common thoughts with the graces of elocution, and the elegancy of style. The miracle will then cease.

Lord Chesterfield
Men, Supernatural Beings, Light

Indifference is commonly the mother of discretion.

Lord Chesterfield
Mother, Wisdom, Indifference

Gratitude is a burden upon our imperfect nature.

Lord Chesterfield
Gratitude, Imperfect, Burden

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