I am very sure that any man of common understanding may, by culture, care, attention, and labor, make himself what- ever he pleases, except a great poet.
Lord Chesterfield

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

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

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

I sometimes give myself admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it.
Lord Chesterfield

Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds.
Lord Chesterfield

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

If you are not in fashion, you are nobody.
Lord Chesterfield

If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.
Lord Chesterfield

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

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

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

In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it - thou art a fool.
Lord Chesterfield

In those days he was wiser than he is now - he used frequently to take my advice.
Lord Chesterfield

Inferiority is what you enjoy in your best friends.
Lord Chesterfield

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.
Lord Chesterfield

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

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

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

Let them show me a cottage where there are not the same vices of which they accuse the courts.
Lord Chesterfield