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absolutely Adieu adorn ambition attention awkward bad company best company breeding Cæsar CALIGULA CARDINAL DE RETZ certainly character Chesterfield Cicero common Compiègne complaisance consequently contempt conversation court dance degree Demosthenes deserve desire dress Duke of Marlborough easy endeavor engage epigram fashion favor folly fool French frivolous genteel give good-breeding graces Harte heart hope imagine justly keep king knowledge laugh learning least letter Lord Lord Chesterfield Lord Shaftesbury low company mankind manners matter mean merit mind minister Molière moral necessary never object observe ould passion pleasing pleasures politeness proper Quintilian reason respect ridicule rism Rome sense shine silly Sir James Gray speak Stanhope suppose sure tell thing thought thout tion trifles true truth Turin Tuscan vanity virtue vulgar weak wish women words young
Popular passages
Page 222 - Clarendon paints as possessing beyond all his contemporaries " a head to contrive, a tongue to persuade, and a hand to execute...
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 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 243 - Take care of the pence and the pounds will take care of themselves is as true of personal habits as of money.
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 - ... 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. Vulgar, low expressions, awkward motions and address, vilify; as they imply, either a very low turn of mind, or low education and low company.
Page 198 - THE RESULT OF MUCH GOOD SENSE, SOME GOOD NATURE, AND A LITTLE SELF-DENIAL FOR THE SAKE OF OTHERS, AND WITH A VIEW TO OBTAIN THE SAME INDULGENCE FROM THEM.
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 31 - The voice and manner of speaking, too, are not to be neglected: some people almost shut their mouths when they speak, and mutter so...
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.