520 Quotes by Lord Chesterfield

When a man is once in fashion, all he does is right.

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

Civility, which is a disposition to accommodate and oblige others, is essentially the same in every country; but good breeding, asit is called, which is the manner of exerting that disposition, is different in almost every country, and merely local; and every man of sense imitates and conforms to that local good breeding of the place which he is at.

The manner of a vulgar man has freedom without ease; the manner of a gentleman, ease without freedom

Lady ---- is safely delivered of a son, to the great joy of that noble family. The expression, of a woman's having brought her husband a son, seems to be a proper and cautious one; for it is never said, from whence.

History is only a confused heap of facts

Custom has made dancing sometimes necessary for a young man; therefore mind it while you learn it, that you may learn to do it well, and not be ridiculous, though in a ridiculous act.

The mere brute pleasure of reading -the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.

A foreign minister, I will maintain it, can never be a good man of business if he is not an agreeable man of pleasure too. Half his business is done by the help of his pleasures: his views are carried on, and perhaps best, and most unsuspectedly, at balls, suppers, assemblies, and parties of pleasure; by intrigues with women, and connections insensibly formed with men, at those unguarded hours of amusement.