Let dull critics feed upon the carcasses of plays; give me the taste and the dressing. - Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

I wish to God that you had as much pleasure in following my advice, as I have in giving it to you.

You had better refuse a favor gracefully, than to grant it clumsily. Manner is all, in everything: it is by manner only that you can please, and consequently rise. All your Greek will never advance you from secretary to envoy, or from envoy to ambassador; but your address, your manner, your air, if good, very probably may.

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.