“The most essential of all knowledge, I mean the knowledge of the world, is never acquired without great attention, and I know a great many aged persons who, after having had an extensive acquaintance, are still mere children in the knowledge of the world.” “Human nature is the same all over the world; but its operations are so varied by education and custom that we ought to see it in all its aspects to get an intimate knowledge of it.” “Almost all men are born with every passion to some extent, but there is hardly a man who has not a dominant passion to which the others are subordinate. Discover this governing passion in every individual; search into the recesses of his heart, and observe the different effects of the same passion in different people. And when you have found the master passion of a man, remember never to trust to him where that passion is concerned.” “If you wish particularly to gain the good graces and affection of certain people, men or women, try to discover their most striking merit, if they have one, and their dominant weakness, for every one has his own, then do justice to the one, and _a little more than justice to the other_.” “Women, in general, have only one object, which is their beauty, upon which subject hardly any flattery can be too gross to please them.” “The flattery which is most pleasing to really beautiful or decidedly ugly women, is that which is addressed to their intellect.” On the subject of women, again, if he seems disdainful now and then, he makes reparation elsewhere; and, above all, whatever he thinks of them, he never allows his son to slander them too much. “You appear to think that from the days of _Eve_ to the present time they have done much harm: as regards _that lady_ I agree with you; but from her time history teaches you that men have done more harm in the world than women; and to speak truly, I would warn you not to trust either sex more than is absolutely necessary. But what I particularly advise you is this: never to attack whole bodies, whatever they may be.” “Individuals occasionally forgive, but bodies and societies never do.” In general, Chesterfield counsels his son to be circumspect and to preserve a sort of prudent neutrality, even in the case of the knaves and fools with which the world abounds. “After their friendship there is nothing more dangerous than to have them for enemies.” It is not the morality of Cato nor of Zeno, but that of Alcibiades, of Aristippus, or Atticus. Upon religion he shall speak, in reply to some trenchant opinion that his son had expressed: “The reason of every man is and ought to be his guide; and I shall have as much right to expect every man to be of my height and temperament, as to wish that he should reason precisely as I do.”