Lord Chesterfield quotes - Page : 6

" 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 one's learning. " # Learning

" Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not merely pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one. " # Learning # Wisdom # Love

" Politeness is as much concerned in answering letters within a reasonable time, as it is in returning a bow, immediately. " # Letters # Politicians and Politics # Love

" Most maxim-mongers have preferred the prettiness to the justness of a thought, and the turn to the truth; but I have refused myself to everything that my own experience did not justify and confirm. " # Aphorisms and Epigrams # Truth # Experience

" Speak of the moderns without contempt, and of the ancients without idolatry. " # Literature # Idols # Modern and Modernism

" Manners must adorn knowledge, and smooth its way through the world. " # Manners # Knowledge # Beauty

" Ceremony is necessary as the outwork and defense of manners. " # Manners

" A man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humors and flatters them, as he does with a sprightly and forward child; but he neither consults them about, nor trusts them with, serious matters. " # Men and Women # Humor # Children

" Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise. " # Modesty # Trying # Fishing

" Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable. " # Perfection # Perseverance # Laziness