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Part 14

The Man Who Pleases and the Woman Who Charms · John A. Cone — chapter 14 of 20 · ~554 words · public domain

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LORD CHESTERFIELD.

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"Tact, though partly a natural gift, is a good deal indebted to education and early habits. The superiority of one sex to the other in this respect will often be found to depend on art quite as much as upon nature."

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"Never is silence more eloquent than when it is preserved toward persons older than ourselves when they voice opinions long since proven erroneous. Age doesn't like to be contradicted, right or wrong."

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In the supremacy of self-control consists one of the perfections of the ideal man: not to be impulsive, not to be spurred hither and thither by each desire that in turn comes uppermost; but to be restrained, self-balanced, governed by the joint decision of the feelings in council assembled, before whom every action shall have been fully debated and calmly determined.

HERBERT SPENCER.

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In the exhaustless catalogue of heaven's mercies to mankind, the power we have of finding some germs of comfort in the hardest trials must ever occupy the foremost place; not only because it supports and upholds us when we most require to be sustained, but because in this source of consolation there is something, we have every reason to believe, of the Divine Spirit; something which, even in our fallen nature we possess in common with the angels.

DICKENS.

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"When you bury animosity don't set up a headstone over its grave."

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I don't never hav truble in regulating mi own kondukt, but tew keep other pholks straight iz what bothers me.

JOSH BILLINGS.

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"Hundreds of the most agreeable persons in fashionable society are those who are content to be taught the things they already know."

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It is better to return a dropped fan genteelly than give a thousand pounds awkwardly; you had better refuse a favor gracefully than grant it clumsily. All your Greek can never advance you from secretary to envoy, or from envoy to embassador, but your address, your air, your manner, if good, may.

LORD CHESTERFIELD.

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"The art of not hearing should be learned by all. It is fully as important to domestic happiness as a cultivated ear, for which both money and time are expended. There are so many things which it is painful to hear, so many which we ought not to hear, so very many which if heard will disturb the temper, corrupt simplicity and modesty, detract from contentment and happiness that everyone should be educated to take in or shut out sounds according to his or her pleasure."

Once A Week.

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"The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone. She never knew how I loved her. He never knew what he was to me. I always meant to make more of your friendship. I did not know what he was to me till he was gone. Such are the poisoned arrows which cruel death shoots back at us from the door of the sepulchre."

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We are only really alive when we enjoy the good will of others.

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