Lord Chesterfield People Quotations

Never hold anyone by the button, or the hand, in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them

If a man has a mind to be thought wiser, and a woman handsomer than they really are, their error is a comfortable one to themselves, and an innocent one with regard to other people

Never seem more learned than the people you are with. Wear your learning like a pocket watch and keep it hidden. Do not pull it out to count the hours, but give the time when you are asked.

Few people do business well who do nothing else

Polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.

A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners.

I recommend to you to take care of the minutes; for hours will take care of themselves. I am very sure, that many people lose two or three hours every day, by not taking care of the minutes.

Observe any meetings of people, and you will always find their eagerness and impetuosity rise or fall in proportion to their numbers.

You must look into people, as well as at them.

Religion is by no means a proper subject of conversation in mixed company; it should only be treated among a very few people of learning, for mutual instruction. It is too awful and respectable a subject to become a familiar one.

Talk often, but never long; in that case, if you do not please, at least you are sure not to tire your hearers. Pay your own reckoning, but do not treat the whole company; this being one of the few cases in which people do not care to be treated, every one being fully convinced that he has wherewithal to pay.

Great merit or great failings will make you respected or despised; but trifles, little attentions, mere nothings, either done or neglected, will make you either liked or disliked, in the general run of the world. Examine yourself, why you like such and such people and dislike such and such others; and you will find that those different sentiments proceed from very slight causes.

A seeming ignorance is very often a most necessary part of worldly knowledge. It is, for instance, commonly advisable to seem ignorant of what people offer to tell you; and, when they say, Have you not heard of such a thing? to answer, No, and to let them go on, though you know it already.

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.

There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.

Most people have ears, but few have judgment; tickle those ears, and depend upon it, you will catch their judgments, such as they are.

Cautiously avoid speaking of the domestic affairs either of yourself, or of other people. Yours are nothing to them but tedious gossip; and theirs are nothing to you.

Virtue and learning, like gold, have their intrinsic value: but if they are not polished, they certainly lose a great deal of their luster: and even polished brass will pass upon more people than rough gold.

Good breeding and good nature do incline us rather to help and raise people up to ourselves, than to mortify and depress them, and, in truth, our own private interest concurs in it, as it is making ourselves so many friends, instead of so many enemies.

Mind not only what people say, but how they say it; and if you have any sagacity, you may discover more truth by your eyes than by your ears. People can say what they will, but they cannot look just as they will; and their looks frequently (reveal) what their words are calculated to conceal.

There are people who indulge themselves in a sort of lying, which they reckon innocent, and which in one sense is so; for it hurtsnobody but themselves. This sort of lying is the spurious offspring of vanity, begotten upon folly.

Many people come into company full of what they intend to say in it themselves, without the least regard to others; and thus charged up to the muzzle are resolved to let it off at any rate.

Observe it, the vulgar often laugh, but never smile, whereas well-bred people often smile, and seldom or never laugh. A witty thing never excited laughter, it pleases only the mind and never distorts the countenance.

Never hold anyone by the button or the hand in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them.

People will no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt.

It is good breeding alone that can prepossess people in your favor at first sight, more time being necessary to discover greater talents.

Either a good or a bad reputation outruns and gets before people wherever they go.

People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority.

To please people is a great step towards persuading them.

If you will please people, you must please them in their own way.

No man tastes pleasures truly, who does not earn them by previous business; and few people do business well, who do nothing else.

People hate who makes you feel one's inferiority.

Two people cannot be alone together for upwards of half an hour without one emerging as the superior.

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

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

Every man becomes, to a certain degree, what the people he generally converses with are.

Wit is so shining a quality that everybody admires it; most people aim at it, all people fear it, and few love it unless in themselves. A man must have a good share of wit himself to endure a great share of it in another.

Most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends.

Pleasure is the rock which most young people split upon; they launch out with crowded sails in quest of it, but without a compassto direct their course, or reason sufficient to steer the vessel; for want of which, pain and shame, instead of pleasure, are the returns of their voyage.

Love has been not unaptly compared to the small-pox, which most people have sooner or later.

If you wish particularly to gain the good graces and affection of certain people, men or women, try to discover their most striking merit, if they have one, and their dominant weakness, for every one has his own, then do justice to the one, and a little more than justice to the other.

You should not only have attention to everything, but a quickness of attention, so as to observe at once all the people in the room--their motions, their looks and their words--and yet without staring at them and seeming to be an observer.

The best way to compel weak-minded people to adopt our opinion, is to frighten them from all others, by magnifying their danger.

If you will please people, you must please them in their own way; and as you cannot make them what they should be, you must take them as they are.

People will, in a great degree, and not without reason, form their opinion of you upon that which they have of your friends; and there is a Spanish proverb which says vry justly, 'Tell me whom you live with, and I will tell you who you are.'

The manner of your speaking is full as important as the matter, as more people have ears to be tickled than understandings to judge.

Take rather than give the tone to the company you are in. If you have parts you will show them more or less upon every subject; and if you have not, you had better talk sillily upon a subject of other people's than of your own choosing.

Keep your own secret, and get out other people's. Keep your own temper, and artfully warm other people's. Counterwork your rivalswith diligence and dexterity, but at the same time with the utmost personal civility to them: and be firm without heat.

Pray be always in motion. Early in the morning go and see things; and the rest of the day go and see people. If you stay but a week at a place, and that an insignificant one, see, however, all that is to be seen there; know as many people, and get into as many houses as ever you can.