Famous Quotes by Lord Chesterfield (89 Quotations)

He makes people pleased with him by making them first pleased with themselves.

Lord Chesterfield – [Persuasion]

History is but a confused heap of facts.

Lord Chesterfield – [History and Historians]

Honest error is to be pitied, not ridiculed.

Lord Chesterfield – [Failure]

Horse-play, romping, frequent and loud fits of laughter, jokes, and indiscriminate familiarity, will sink both merit and knowledge into a degree of contempt. They compose at most a merry fellow; and a merry fellow was never yet a respectable man.

Lord Chesterfield – [Fun]

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 – [Heroes and Heroism]

I find, by experience, that the mind and the body are more than married, for they are most intimately united; and when one suffers, the other sympathizes.

Lord Chesterfield – [Mind]

I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide; for the man is effectually destroyed, though the appetites of the brute may survive.

Lord Chesterfield – [Indolence]

I recommend you to take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves.

Lord Chesterfield – [Time and Time Management]

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.

Lord Chesterfield – [Intimacy]

If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition (or whatever is their prevailing passion) on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.

Lord Chesterfield – [Reason]

If you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself.

Lord Chesterfield – [Persuasion]

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

Lord Chesterfield – [Advice]

In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible laughter.

Lord Chesterfield – [Laughter]

In the case of scandal, as in that of robbery, the receiver is always thought as bad as the thief.

Lord Chesterfield – [Scandal]

Inferiority is what you enjoy in your best friends.

Lord Chesterfield – [Inferiority]

It is commonly said that ridicule is the best test of truth; for that it will not stick where it is not just. I deny it. A truth learned in a certain light, and attacked in certain words, by men of wit and humor, may, and often doth, become ridiculous, at least so far, that the truth is only remembered and repeated for the sake of the ridicule.

Lord Chesterfield – [Ridicule]

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

Lord Chesterfield – [Punctuality]

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

Lord Chesterfield – [Knowledge]

Knowledge of the world in only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.

Lord Chesterfield – [Knowledge]

Learning is acquired by reading books, but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various facets of them.

Lord Chesterfield – [Knowledge]