Ridicule is the best test of truth.
Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield
A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things but cannot receive great ones.
mind things great weak greatness-and-greatthings
Man is more himself, man is more manlike, when joy is the fundamental thing in him, and grief the superficial.
man joy grief thing
In matters of religion and matrimony I never give any advice because I will not have anybody's torments in this world or the next laid to my charge.
poetry religion world advice matrimony give
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.
age fear heart liar young worse greater
Vicious minds abound with anger and revenge are incapable of feeling the pleasure of forgiving their enemies.
anger revenge enemies feeling forgiving pleasure minds
Be wiser than other people if you can but do not tell them so.
people
The pleasure is momentary, the position rediculous, and the expense damnable.
pleasure
Learning is acquired by reading books but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading man, and studying all the various editions of them.
reading studying man world learning knowledge books
The more one works, the more willing one is to work.
work works
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.
learning
truth ridicule
Most maxim-mongers have preferred the prettiness to the justness of a thought, and the turn to the truth but I have refused myself to everything that my own experience did not justify and confirm.
truth experience thought
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