Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of 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 tomorrow what you can do today.
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.
Good humor is the health of the soul, sadness is its poison.
Sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.
Women are only children of a larger growth. A man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humours and flatters them, as he does with a sprightly and forward child; but he neither consults them about, nor trusts them with, serious matters.
An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.
In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it - thou art a fool.
A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things, but cannot receive great ones.
Regularity in the hours of rising and retiring, perseverance in exercise, adaptation of dress to the variations of climate, simple and nutritious aliment, and temperance in all things are necessary branches of the regimen of health.
The less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in.
Patience is the most necessary quality for business, many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request.
You must look into people as well as at them.
Wear your learning like your watch, in a private pocket; and do not pull it out, and strike it, merely to show that you have one.
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
I recommend you to take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves.
There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.
Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
Be wiser than other people if you can, but do not tell them so.
Let your enemies be disarmed by the gentleness of your manner, but at the same time let them feel, the steadiness of your resentment.
Judgment is not upon all occasions required, but discretion always is.
The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse, always harder. A young liar will be an old one, and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.
Hear one side and you will be in the dark. Hear both and all will be clear.
Being pretty on the inside means you don't hit your brother and you eat all your peas - that's what my grandma taught me.
Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds.
It is always right to detect a fraud, and to perceive a folly; but it is very often wrong to expose either. A man of business should always have his eyes open, but must often seem to have them shut.
Good breeding is the result of good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others.
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.
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.
In those days he was wiser than he is now - he used frequently to take my advice.
I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide; for the man is effectually destroyed, though the appetites of the brute may survive.
Most people enjoy the inferiority of their best friends.
A young man, be his merit what it will, can never raise himself; but must, like the ivy round the oak, twine himself round some man of great power and interest.
Politicians neither love nor hate. Interest, not sentiment, directs them.
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.
If you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself.
Politeness is as much concerned in answering letters within a reasonable time, as it is in returning a bow, immediately.
Remember, as long as you live, that nothing but strict truth can carry you through the world, with either your conscience or your honor unwounded.
Honest error is to be pitied, not ridiculed.
Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, that it shocks us at first sight; and would hardly ever seduce us, if it did not at first wear the mask of some virtue.
There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.
The world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description; one must travel through it one's self to be acquainted with it.
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.
Let them show me a cottage where there are not the same vices of which they accuse the courts.
Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always want it the least.
Persist and persevere, and you will find most things that are attainable, possible.
Whoever is in a hurry shows that the thing he is about is too big for him.
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.
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.
Every man becomes, to a certain degree, what the people he generally converses with are.
