Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Quotes

The ministers of Christ should possess refinement. All uncouth manners, attitudes and gestures should be discarded, and they should encourage in themselves humble dignity of bearing.

Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.

don't be angry with the gentleman for thinking, whatever be the cause, for I assure you he makes no common practice of offending in that way.

My father always used to say ‘treat everyone as a gentleman; not because they are, but because you are.’

Every man of any education would rather be called a rascal, than accused of deficiency in the graces.

The civilities of the great are never thrown away.

There is certainly something of exquisite kindness and thoughtful benevolence in that rarest of gifts,--fine breeding.

As a general rule, do not kick the shins of the opposite gentleman under the table, if personally unaquainted with him; your pleasantry is liable to be misunderstood--a circumstance at all times unpleasant.

The essence of being a gentleman is to understand the way you're supposed to treat a respectable woman.

A gentleman is one who understands and shows every mark of deference to the claims of self-love in others, and exacts it in return from them.

The only true source of politeness is consideration,--that vigilant moral sense which never loses sight of the rights, the claims, and the sensibilities of others. This is the one quality, over all others, necessary to make a gentleman.

If it were not for quotations, conversations between gentlemen would consist of an endless series of 'what-ho!'s.

Americans are incredibly polite as long as they get what they want.

Good general-purpose manners nowadays may be said to consist in knowing how much you can get away with.

Manners are the ability to put someone else at their ease...by turning any answer into another question.

He bowed. 'The young lady must not dance alone.

Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions. Men are too coarsely made for the delicacy of beautiful carriage and customs. It is not quite sufficient to good breeding, a union of kindness and independence.

It is gentle manners which prove so irresistible in women.

There is no society or conversation to be kept up in the world without good-nature, or something which must bear its appearance and supply its place. For this reason mankind have been forced to invent a kind of artificial humanity, which is what we express by the word Good-Breeding.

A lady is a woman who makes a man behave like a gentleman.

A gentleman is a man who is only rude when he intends to be.

Manners are made up of trivialities of deportment which can be easily learned if one does not happen to know them.

A well-bred carriage is difficult to imitate; for in strictness it is negative, and it implies a long-continued previous training.

Those who have mastered etiquette, who are entirely, impeccably right, would seem to arrive at a point of exquisite dullness.

Manners must adorn knowledge and smooth its way through the world.