79 quotes
Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
Courts and camps are the only places to learn the world in.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
The characteristic of a well-bred man is, to converse with his inferiors without insolence, and with his superiors with respect and with ease.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
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.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
Every woman is infallibly to be gained by every sort of flattery, and every man by one sort or other.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
The chapter of knowledge is a very short, but the chapter of accidents is a very long one.
A weak mind with no common sense magnifies trifling things and cannot receive great ones.
Let dull critics feed upon the carcasses of plays; give me the taste and the dressing.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
I recommend you to take care of the minutes: for hours will take care of themselves.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
Speak of the moderns without contempt, and of the ancients without idolatry.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
Marriage is the cure of love, and friendship the cure of marriage.
The manner is often as important as the matter, sometimes more so.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
Without some dissimulation no business can be carried on at all.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
You foolish man, you don't even know your own foolish business.
Do as you would be done by, is the surest method of pleasing.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
Take the tone of the company you are in.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
The nation looked upon him as a deserter, and he shrunk into insignificancy and an earldom.
I am sure that since I have had the full use of my reason, nobody has ever heard me laugh.
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)