Lord Chesterfield Quotes About Manners
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I have seen many people, who while you are speaking to them, instead, of looking at, and attending to you, fix their eyes upon the ceiling, or some other part of the room, look out of the window, play with a dog, twirl their snuff-box, or pick their nose. Nothing discovers a little, futile, frivolous mind more than this, and nothing is so offensively ill-bred.
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Manners must adorn knowledge and smooth its way in the world, without them it is like a great rough diamond, very well in a closet by way of curiosity, and also for its intrinsic value; but most prized when polished.
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Frequent and loud laughter is the characteristic of folly and ill manners.
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In the ordinary course of things, how many succeed in society merely by virtue of their manners, while others, however meritorious, fail through lack of them? After all, it's only barbarians who wear uncut precious stones.
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Ceremony is necessary in Courts, as the outwork and defense of manners.
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Civility, which is a disposition to accommodate and oblige others, is essentially the same in every country; but good breeding, asit is called, which is the manner of exerting that disposition, is different in almost every country, and merely local; and every man of sense imitates and conforms to that local good breeding of the place which he is at.
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Prepare yourself for the world, as athletes used to do for their exercises; oil your mind and your manners, to give them the necessary suppleness and flexibility; strength alone will not do.
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I heartily wish you, in the plain home-spun style, a great number of happy new years, well employed in forming both your mind andyour manners, to be useful and agreeable to yourself, your country, and your friends.
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The company of women of fashion will improve your manners, though not your understanding; and that complaisance and politeness, which are so useful in men's company, can only be acquired in women's.
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Nothing sharpens the arrow of sarcasm so keenly as the courtesy that polishes it; no reproach is like that we clothe with a smile and present with a bow.
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A certain degree of ceremony is a necessary outwork of manners, as well as of religion; it keeps the forward and petulant at a proper distance, and is a very small restraint to the sensible and to the well-bred part of the world.
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A man's own good breeding is the best security against other people's ill manners.
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Many young people adopt pleasures for which they have not the least taste, only because they are called by that name.... You mustallow that drunkenness, which is equally destructive to body and mind, is a fine pleasure. Gaming, that draws you into a thousand scraps, leaves you penniless, and gives you the air and manners of an outrageous madman, is another most exquisite pleasure, is it not? As to running after women, the consequences of that vice are only the loss of one's nose, the total destruction of health, and, not unfrequently, the being run through the body.
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Good manners are the settled medium of social, as specie is of commercial, life; returns are equally expected for both.
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You must be respectful and assenting, but without being servile and abject. You must be frank, but without indiscretion, and close, without being costive. You must keep up dignity of character, without the least pride of birth, or rank. You must be gay, within all the bounds of decency and respect; and grave, without the affectation of wisdom, which does not become the age of twenty. You must be essentially secret, without being dark and mysterious. You must be firm, and even bold, but with great seeming modesty.
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Manners must adorn knowledge and smooth its way through the world.
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Good manners, to those one does not love, are no more a breach of truth, than "your humble servant," at the bottom of a challengeis; they are universally agreed upon, and understand to be things of course. They are necessary guards of the decency and peace of society.
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A man's fortune is frequently decided by his first address. If pleasing, others at once conclude he has merit; but if ungraceful, they decide against him.
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The manner of a vulgar man has freedom without ease, and the manner of a gentleman has ease without freedom.
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Ceremonies are the outworks of manners.
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A gentleman has ease without familiarity, is respectful without meanness; genteel without affectation, insinuating without seeming art.
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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.
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I really think next to the consciousness of doing a good action, that of doing a civil one is the most pleasing; and the epithet which I should covet the most next to that of Aristides, would be that of well-bred.
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Cottages have them (falsehood and dissimulation) as well as courts, only with worse manners.
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Lord Chesterfield
- Born: September 22, 1694
- Died: March 24, 1773
- Occupation: British Statesman
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