"Patience, to hear frivolous, impertinent, and unreasonable applications: with address enough to refuse, without offending; or, by your manner of granting, to double the obligation: dexterity enough to conceal a truth, without telling a lie: sagacity enough to read other people’s countenances: and serenity enough not to let them discover anything by yours; a seeming frankness, with a real reserve. These are the rudiments of a politician; the world must be your grammar."

"Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always like it the least."

"Speak of the moderns without contempt, and of the ancients without idolatry."

"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 pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one."

"Sacrifice to the Graces."

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

"I am sure that since I have had the full use of my reason, nobody has ever heard me laugh."

"The characteristic of a well-bred man is, to converse with his inferiors without insolence, and with his superiors with respect and with ease."

"Manners must adorn knowledge, and smooth its way through the world. Like a great rough diamond, it may do very well in a closet by way of curiosity, and also for its intrinsic value."

"Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings; but those who are in a state of mediocrity are best flattered upon their beauty, or at least their graces; for every woman who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome."

"Little minds mistake little objects for great ones, and lavish away upon the former that time and attention which only the latter deserve. To such mistakes we owe the numerous and frivolous tribe of insect-mongers, shell-mongers, and pursuers and driers of butterflies, etc. The strong mind distinguishes, not only between the useful and the useless, but likewise between the useful and the curious."

"A strong mind sees things in their true proportions; a weak one views them through a magnifying medium, which, like the microscope, makes an elephant of a flea: magnifies all little objects, but cannot receive great ones."

"The herd of mankind can hardly be said to think; their notions are almost all adoptive; and, in general, I believe it is better that it should be so; as such common prejudices contribute more to order and quiet, than their own separate reasonings would do, uncultivated and unimproved as they are."

"Without some dissimulation no business can be carried on at all."

"I recommend to you, in my last, an innocent piece of art: that of flattering people behind their backs, in presence of those who, to make their own court, much more than for your sake, will not fail to repeat, and even amplify, the praise to the party concerned. This is of all flattery the most pleasing, and consequently the most effectual."

"Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds."

"Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade, as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one’s own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence in other people’s, preserve dignity."

"Style is the dress of thoughts."

"Women are much more like each other than men: they have, in truth, but two passions, vanity and love; these are their universal characteristics."

"We must not draw general conclusions from certain particular principles, though, in the main, true ones. We must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will therefore always act rationally; or, because he has such or such a predominant passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in the pursuit of it. No. We are complicated machines: and though we have one main-spring, that gives motion to the whole, we have an infinity of little wheels, which, in their turns, retard, precipitate, and sometimes stop that motion."

"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."

"Dispatch is the soul of business."

"I wish to God that you had as much pleasure in following my advice, as I have in giving it to you."

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

"Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote."

"The manner is often as important as the matter, sometimes more so."

"You had better refuse a favor gracefully, than to grant it clumsily. Manner is all, in everything: it is by manner only that you can please, and consequently rise. All your Greek will never advance you from secretary to envoy, or from envoy to ambassador; but your address, your manner, your air, if good, very probably may."

"It is commonly said, and more particularly by Lord Shaftesbury, that ridicule is the best test of truth."

"Let dull critics feed upon the carcasses of plays; give me the taste and the dressing."

"Every woman is infallibly to be gained by every sort of flattery, and every man by one sort or other."

"It is a great advantage for any man to be able to talk or hear, neither ignorantly nor absurdly, upon any subject; for I have known people, who have not said one word, hear ignorantly and absurdly; it has appeared by their inattentive and unmeaning faces."

"A proper secrecy is the only mystery of able men; mystery is the only secrecy of weak and cunning ones."

"There are some occasions in which a man must tell half his secret, in order to conceal the rest; but there is seldom one in which a man should tell all. Great skill is necessary to know how far to go, and where to stop."

"The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap; it does not depend so much upon a man’s general expense, as it does upon his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all. A man, for instance, who should give a servant four shillings, would pass for covetous, while he who gave him a crown, would be reckoned generous; so that the difference of those two opposite characters, turns upon one shilling."

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

"Let this be one invariable rule of your conduct—never to show the least symptom of resentment, which you cannot, to a certain degree, gratify; but always to smile, where you cannot strike."

"Our conjectures pass upon us for truths; we will know what we do not know, and often, what we cannot know: so mortifying to our pride is the base suspicion of ignorance."

"In short, let it be your maxim through life, to know all you can know, yourself; and never to trust implicitly to the informations of others."

"It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. One yawns, one procrastinates, one can do it when one will, and therefore one seldom does it at all."

"You foolish man, you do not understand your own foolish business."

"[On sex] The pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, the expense damnable."

"It wasn't until I grew up and read Lord Chesterfield that I began my education. He became my tutor and the public library my university."

"For my part, I like more straight-forward work."

"They teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master."

"To my great surprise they seem really written from the heart, not for the honour of his head, and in truth do no great honour to the last, nor show much feeling in the first, except in wishing for his son's fine gentleman-hood."

"Error is a hardy plant; it flourisheth in every soil; In the heart of the wise and good, alike with the wicked and foolish; For there is no error so crooked, but it hath in it some lines of truth; Nor is any poison so deadly, that it serveth not some wholesome use."

"Religion was best understood when least talked of."

"What acquaintance have the people at large with the arcana of political rectitude, with the connections of kingdoms, the resources of national strength, the abilities of ministers, or even with their own dispositions? ... I pay no regard whatever to the voice of the people: it is our duty to do what is proper, without considering what may be agreeable."