Lord Chesterfield

Pocket all your knowledge with your watch, and never pull it out in company unless desired.

So much are our minds influenced by the accidents of our bodies, that every man is more the man of the day than a regular and consequential character.

The rich are always advising the poor, but the poor seldom return the compliment.

Politicians neither love nor hate. Interest, not sentiment, directs them.

Character must be kept bright as well as clean.

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

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.

For my own part, I would rather be in company with a dead man than with an absent one; for if the dead man gives me no pleasure, at least he shows me no contempt; whereas the absent one, silently indeed, but very plainly, tells me that he does not think me worth his attention.

Knowledge is a comfortable and necessary retreat and shelter for us in an advanced age; and if we do not plant it while young, it will give us no shade when we grow old.

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

Be your character what it will, it will be known, and nobody will take it upon your word.

The less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in.