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Adieu adorn ambition attention awkward bad company best company breeding Cæsar Cardinal de Retz character Chesterfield Cicero common commonly Compiègne complaisance consequently contempt conversation Corinthian order countenance court dance degree deserve desire dress easy endeavor engage Englishman epigram fashion favor flatter folly fool French frivolous genteel give good-breeding graces Harte heart House of Savoy inattention Julius Cæsar justly king knowledge laugh laziness learning least letter Lord Lord Bolingbroke Lord Chesterfield Lord Shaftesbury low company man's mankind manners matter mean ment merit mind minister Molière moral nature necessary never object observe passion person pleasing pleasures politeness proper Quintilian reason respect ridicule Rome sense shine silly Sir James Gray speak Stanhope suppose sure taste tell thing thought tion trifling true truth vanity vice virtue vulgar weak wish women words young
Popular passages
Page 124 - Talk often, but never long ; in that case, if you do not please, at least you are sure not to tire your hearers. Pay your own reckoning, but do not treat the whole company, — this being one of the very few cases in which people do not care to be treated, every one being fully convinced that he has wherewithal to pay.
Page 243 - Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves is as true of personal habits as of money.
Page 224 - I desire that you will read it over and over again, with particular attention to the style, and to all those beauties of oratory with which it is adorned. Till I read that book, I confess I did not know all the extent and powers of the English language.
Page 82 - 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.
Page 256 - I do not love thee, Dr. Fell, The reason why I cannot tell; But this I know, and know full well, I do not love thee. Dr. Fell.
Page 174 - The pretensions of the proud man are oftener treated with sneer and contempt than with indignation; as we offer ridiculously too little to a tradesman who asks ridiculously too much for his goods, but we do not haggle with one who only asks a just and reasonable price. 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....
Page 212 - Style is the dress of thoughts ; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage, and be as ill received as your person, though ever so well proportioned, would, if dressed in rags, dirt, and tatters. It is not every understanding that can judge of matter...
Page 222 - Clarendon paints as possessing beyond all his contemporaries " a head to contrive, a tongue to persuade, and a hand to execute...
Page 84 - True wit, or sense, never yet made anybody laugh; they are above it: they please the mind, and give a cheerfulness to the countenance. But it is low buffoonery, or silly accidents, that always excite laughter; and that is what people of sense and breeding should show themselves above.
Page 174 - ... at supper, for he is always joking and laughing ; we will ask another, because he plays deep at all games, or because he can drink a great deal. These are all vilifying distinctions, mortifying preferences, and exclude all ideas of esteem and regard. Whoever is had (as it 'is called) in company for the sake of any one thing singly, is singly that thing, and will never be considered in any other light ; consequently never respected, let his merits be what they will.