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.

Lord Chesterfield

Categorized in : People Depressing Friends

If we do not plant knowledge when young, it will give us no shade when we are old.

Lord Chesterfield

teaching teacher inspirational

Whatever you do, do it to the purpose; do it thoroughly, not superficially. Go to the bottom of things. Any thing half done, or half known, is in my mind, neither done nor known at all. Nay, worse, for it often misleads.

Lord Chesterfield

done purpose mind

A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things but cannot receive great ones.

Lord Chesterfield

perspective ignorance education

Distrust those who love you extremely upon a slight acquaintance, and without any visible reason.

Lord Chesterfield

trust love-you friendship

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.

Lord Chesterfield

pockets learning people

Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.

Lord Chesterfield

standards wells life

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

Lord Chesterfield

relationship men people

Advice is seldom welcome, and those who need it the most, like it the least.

Lord Chesterfield

balance advice needs

Almost all men are born with every passion to some extent, but there is hardly a man who has not a dominant passion to which the others are subordinate. Discover this governing passion in every individual; and when you have found the master passion of a man, remember never to trust to him where that passion is concerned.

Lord Chesterfield

passion remember men

You must be respectable, if you will be respected.

Lord Chesterfield

ifs respectable

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

Lord Chesterfield

care time positive

If you have an hour, will you not improve that hour, instead of idling it away?

Lord Chesterfield

growth inspirational life

Firmness of purpose is one of the best instruments of success.

Lord Chesterfield

mazes purpose success

Without any extraordinary effort of genius, I have discovered that nature was the same three thousand years ago as at present; that men were but men then as well as now; that modes and customs vary often, but that human nature is always the same. And I can no more suppose, that men were better, braver, or wiser, fifteen hundred or three thousand years ago, than I can suppose that the animals or vegetables were better than they are now.

Lord Chesterfield

vegetables animal men

Wrongs are often forgiven; but contempt never is. Our pride remembers it forever.

Lord Chesterfield

forgiveness pride forever

We are as often duped by diffidence as by confidence.

Lord Chesterfield

diffidence confidence

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.

Lord Chesterfield

play men children

Speak of the moderns without contempt and of the ancients without idolatry; judge them all by their merits, but not by their age

Lord Chesterfield

merit judging age

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

Lord Chesterfield

motivational positive life

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.

Lord Chesterfield

laziness perfection giving