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This etext was produced by David Widger <[email protected]>

WIDGER'S QUOTATIONS

FROM THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EDITION OF LORD CHESTERFIELD'S LETTERS TO HIS SON

by David Widger

CONTENTS:

The Entire PG Edition of Chesterfield …..[LC#11][lcewk10.txt]3261
Complete Letters to His Son ……………[LC#11][lc11s10.txt]3361
Letters To His Son 1766-71, ……………[LC#10][lc10s10.txt]3360
Letters To His Son 1759-65, ……………[LC#09][lc09s10.txt]3359
Letters To His Son 1756-58, ……………[LC#08][lc08s10.txt]3358
Letters To His Son 1753-54, ……………[LC#07][lc07s10.txt]3357
Letters To His Son 1752, ………………[LC#06][lc06s10.txt]3356
Letters To His Son 1751, ………………[LC#05][lc05s10.txt]3355
Letters To His Son 1750, ………………[LC#04][lc04s10.txt]3354
Letters To His Son 1749, ………………[LC#03][lc03s10.txt]3353
Letters To His Son 1748, ………………[LC#02][lc02s10.txt]3352
Letters To His Son 1746-47, ……………[LC#01][lc01s10.txt]3351

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D.W.

WIDGER'S QUOTATIONS

LETTERS TO HIS SON, 1746-47
[LC#01][lc01sxxx.xxx]3351

DEAR BOY: There is nothing which I more wish that you should know, and which fewer people do know, than the true use and value of time. It is in everybody's mouth; but in few people's practice.

Have a real reserve with almost everybody; and have a seeming reserve with almost nobody; for it is very disagreeable to seem reserved, and very dangerous not to be so. Few people find the true medium; many are ridiculously mysterious and reserved upon trifles; and many imprudently communicative of all they know.

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

The young leading the young, is like the blind leading the blind; (they will both fall into the ditch.) The only sure guide is, he who has often gone the road which you want to go.

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 very justly, TELL ME WHO YOU LIVE WITH AND I
WILL TELL YOU WHO YOU ARE!

Attention and civility please all
Avoid singularity
Blindness of the understanding is as much to be pitied
Choose your pleasures for yourself
Civility, which is a disposition to accommodate and oblige others
Complaisant indulgence for people's weaknesses
Contempt
Disagreeable to seem reserved, and very dangerous not to be so
Do as you would be done by
Do what you are about
Dress well, and not too well
Dress like the reasonable people of your own age
Easy without too much familiarity
Employ your whole time, which few people do
Exalt the gentle in woman and man—above the merely genteel
Eyes and ears open and mouth mostly shut
Fit to live—or not live at all
Flexibility of manners is necessary in the course of the world
Genteel without affectation
Geography and history are very imperfect separately
Good-breeding
Gratitude not being universal, nor even common
Greatest fools are the greatest liars
He that is gentil doeth gentil deeds
If once we quarrel, I will never forgive
Injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult
Judge of every man's truth by his degree of understanding
Knowing any language imperfectly
Knowledge: either despise it, or think that they have enough
Labor is the unavoidable fatigue of a necessary journey
Let nothing pass till you understand it
Life of ignorance is not only a very contemptible, but tiresome
Listlessness and indolence are always blameable
Make a great difference between companions and friends
Make himself whatever he pleases, except a good poet
Merit and good-breeding will make their way everywhere
Never maintain an argument with heat and clamor
Observe, without being thought an observer
Only doing one thing at a time
Pay them with compliments, but not with confidence
Pleasure is the rock which most young people split upon
Pride of being the first of the company
Real friendship is a slow grower
Receive them with great civility, but with great incredulity
Recommend (pleasure) to you, like an Epicurean
Respectful without meanness, easy without too much familiarity
Scarce any flattery is too gross for them to swallow
Sentiment-mongers
State your difficulties, whenever you have any
Studied and elaborate dress of the ugliest women in the world
Sure guide is, he who has often gone the road which you want to
Talk of natural affection is talking nonsense
Nothing so precious as time, and so irrecoverable when lost
Unguarded frankness
Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well
Wrapped up and absorbed in their abstruse speculations

LETTERS TO HIS SON, 1748
[LC#02][lc02sxxx.xxx]3352

They go abroad, as they call it; but, in truth, they stay at home all that while; for being very awkward, confoundedly ashamed, and not speaking the languages.

If, therefore, you would avoid the accusation of pedantry on one hand, or the suspicion of ignorance on the other, abstain from learned ostentation.

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

Common sense (which, in truth, very uncommon) is the best sense I know of: abide by it, it will counsel you best.

La Rochefoucault, is, I know, blamed, but I think without reason, for deriving all our actions from the source of self-love. For my own part, I see a great deal of truth, and no harm at all, in that opinion. It is certain that we seek our own happiness in everything we do.

A little learning is a dangerous thing
Above all things, avoid speaking of yourself
Above the frivolous as below the important and the secret
Absolute command of your temper
Abstain from learned ostentation
Absurd term of genteel and fashionable vices
Advice is seldom welcome
Affectation in dress
Always look people in the face when you speak to them
Ancients and Moderns
Argumentative, polemical conversations
As willing and as apt to be pleased as anybody
Authority
Better not to seem to understand, than to reply
Cannot understand them, or will not desire to understand them
Cardinal de Retz
Cardinal Virtues, by first degrading them into weaknesses
Cautious how we draw inferences
Chameleon, be able to take every different hue
Cheerful in the countenance, but without laughing
Common sense (which, in truth, very uncommon)
Commonplace observations
Complaisance
Consciousness and an honest pride of doing well
Contempt
Conversation will help you almost as much as books
Conversation-stock being a joint and common property
Converse with his inferiors without insolence
Deserve a little, and you shall have but a little
Desirous of praise from the praiseworthy
Dexterity enough to conceal a truth without telling a lie
Difficulties seem to them, impossibilities
Distinguish between the useful and the curious
Do as you would be done by
Do what you will but do something all day long
Either do not think, or do not love to think
Equally forbid insolent contempt, or low envy and jealousy
Even where you are sure, seem rather doubtful
Every virtue, has its kindred vice or weakness
Fiddle-faddle stories, that carry no information along with them
Flattery of women
Forge accusations against themselves
Forgive, but not approve, the bad.
Frank, open, and ingenuous exterior, with a prudent interior
Gain the affections as well as the esteem
Generosity often runs into profusion
Go to the bottom of things
Good company
Graces: Without us, all labor is vain
Great learning; which, if not accompanied with sound judgment
Great numbers of people met together, animate each other
Habit and prejudice
Half done or half known
Hardly any body good for every thing
Have a will and an opinion of your own, and adhere to it
Have but one set of jokes to live upon
He will find it out of himself without your endeavors
Heart has such an influence over the understanding
Helps only, not as guides
Historians
Honest error is to be pitied, not ridiculed
Honestest man loves himself best
How much you have to do; and how little time to do it in
I hope, I wish, I doubt, and fear alternately
I shall always love you as you shall deserve.
If you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself
Impertinent insult upon custom and fashion
Inaction at your age is unpardonable
Jealous of being slighted
Judge them all by their merits, but not by their ages
Keep good company, and company above yourself
Know their real value, and how much they are generally overrated
Knowledge is like power in this respect
Knowledge of a scholar with the manners of a courtier
Laughing, I must particularly warn you against it
Lazy mind, and the trifling, frivolous mind
Let me see more of you in your letters
Little minds mistake little objects for great ones
Loud laughter is the mirth of the mob
Low buffoonery, or silly accidents, that always excite laughter
Low company, most falsely and impudently, call pleasure
Luther's disappointed avarice
Make yourself necessary
Manner of doing things is often more important
Manners must adorn knowledge
May not forget with ease what you have with difficulty learned
More one sees, the less one either wonders or admires
More you know, the modester you should be
Mortifying inferiority in knowledge, rank, fortune
Most long talkers single out some one unfortunate man in company
Much sooner forgive an injustice than an insult
Mystical nonsense
Name that we leave behind at one place often gets before us
Neglect them in little things, they will leave you in great
Negligence of it implies an indifference about pleasing
Neither retail nor receive scandal willingly
Never quit a subject till you are thoroughly master of it
Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with
Never slattern away one minute in idleness
Never to speak of yourself at all
Not one minute of the day in which you do nothing at all
Not to admire anything too much
Oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings
Out of livery; which makes them both impertinent and useless
Overvalue what we do not know
Pay your own reckoning, but do not treat the whole company
People angling for praise
People never desire all till they have gotten a great deal
Plain notions of right and wrong
Planted while young, that degree of knowledge now my refuge
Pleased to some degree by showing a desire to please
Pleasing in company is the only way of being pleased in yourself
Pleasure and business with equal inattention
Prefer useful to frivolous conversations
Pride remembers it forever
Prudent reserve
Reason ought to direct the whole, but seldom does
Refuge of people who have neither wit nor invention of their own
Refuse more gracefully than other people could grant
Repeating
Represent, but do not pronounce
Rochefoucault
Rough corners which mere nature has given to the smoothest
Scandal: receiver is always thought, as bad as the thief
Scarcely any body who is absolutely good for nothing
Scrupled no means to obtain his ends
Secrets
Seeming frankness with a real reserve
Seeming openness is prudent
Self-love draws a thick veil between us and our faults
Serious without being dull
Shakespeare
Shepherds and ministers are both men
Some complaisance and attention to fools is prudent
Some men pass their whole time in doing nothing
Something or other is to be got out of everybody
Swearing
Take nothing for granted, upon the bare authority of the author
Take, rather than give, the tone of the company you are in
Talk often, but never long
Talk sillily upon a subject of other people's
Talking of either your own or other people's domestic affairs
Tell me whom you live with, and I will tell you who you are
Tell stories very seldom
The best have something bad, and something little
The worst have something good, and sometimes something great
Thin veil of Modesty drawn before Vanity
Thoroughly, not superficially
To know people's real sentiments, I trust much more to my eyes
Unopened, because one title in twenty has been omitted
Value of moments, when cast up, is immense
Vanity, that source of many of our follies
What displeases or pleases you in others
What you feel pleases you in them
When well dressed for the day think no more of it afterward
Will not so much as hint at our follies
Witty without satire or commonplace
Wrongs are often forgiven; but contempt never is
You had much better hold your tongue than them
Your merit and your manners can alone raise you

LETTERS TO HIS SON, 1749
[LC#03][lc03sxxx.xxx]3353

He always does more than he says.

The arrogant pedant does not communicate, but promulgates his knowledge. He does not give it you, but he inflicts it upon