This book is a wonderful guide to people of all sorts. I would recommend it to every parent for their child, and every child or teenager for their own betterment.

Even if you choose not to take all of the advice, there are many things in this book that you hear and simply nod at the rightness of it. The kind of simple wisdom that we sometimes need to be taught to know it.

It is a book of much depth, ranging in the absurdly obvious advice, to some quite profound advice on how to live a good life.

And excellent gift for a young person in your life, or even an older one :-)

A selection from the letters of Lord Chesterfield to his son. Lots of good advice that is as applicable today as it was then. This book is formatted for children, though I imagine that Chesterfield's writing style is a bit too sophisticated for today's children with low reading skills. A thoughful parent could make good use of this book, and not only for the benefit of his child.

One quote from Lord Chesterfield: 'One who has no experience of the world is enflamed with anger, or annihilated with shame, at every disagreeable incident. A worldly person seems not to understand what cannot or ought not be resented.' Or how about this: 'Be extremely clean in your person.' Or: 'Do as you would be done by.' Or: 'There is nothing that people bear more impatiently or forgive less than contempt; an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.' Another: 'Always look people in the face when you speak with them.' Here's one: 'There is time enough for everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once.' And: 'The steady and undissipated attention to one object is a sure mark of a superior genius.' Here's some good wisdom: 'Let your enemies be disarmed by the gentleness of your manner, but let them feel at the same time the steadiness of your just resentment; for there is a great difference between bearing malice, which is always ungenerous, and a resolute self-defense, which is always prudent and justifiable.' Worldly advice on manner, grace, speaking and conversation, dress and appearance, self-improvement, virtues and vices, etc., etc., etc... The kind of advice, some of it, like cleanliness, very basic, that not everyone is introduced to in their youth for whatever reasons... Here's something that can be used interestingly (or, misused...): 'I recommend to you an innocent piece of art: flattering people behind their backs, in the presence of those who will not fail to repeat and even amplify the praise to the party concerned. This is, of all flattery, the most pleasing and, consequently, the most effectual.' This is a children's book. It has many clever and humorous 19th century illustrations. It's very inexpensive, and it's hard to think where one might come across this type of worldly, everyday advice other than in a book like this if you don't have adults around you who are really on the ball...

This is a masterpiece in self development work.He graphically narrates the importance of travel and education.The advice to his son Phillip is both practical and scholarly. Though at times one may get the feeling of "over kill", Chesterfield has embellished and tempered the book with sound practical knowledge.
Foremost, in the steps for acquisition of knowledge, was the advice given for taking up the study of various languages, especially Latin. The book makes for compulsive reading and must adorn every library.

After reading a children's collection of Chesterfield's writings (The Book of Good Manners) I decided to get this Oxford paperback edition of the actual full-length letters themselves. Chesterfield's complete letters fill six volumes, so any one-volume edition is going to be a selection, but it was the subject of manners which made these letters famous, and this subject is mostly written about in his letters to his son and his grandson, and this edition contains 85 such letters. It also has a few letters Chesterfield wrote to various friends and associates and letters having to do with the functions of his various political career. Even if one doesn't much admire Chesterfield's advice to his offspring (for whatever reason) these insights into behaviour and human nature (in the halls of power or not) are not a bad thing to have an understanding of in your overall world-view. Despite the apparently famous and oft-quoted line from Johnson that these letters teach the morals of a dance master or a prostitute (what Johnson was probably saying was these letters describe the 'surface' of society and the insights and advice in that sense tend to come across as shallow, yet I think it's fair to allow Chesterfield to assume the potential character and substance and depth in the human beings who may practice the manners with the artistry that he describes them) some of Chesterfield's insights come out of (without trying to sound dramatic) esoteric teachings and schools, or at least border on the practices taught in higher schools. 'Tact', for instance, is a worldly word for a higher spiritual practice of seeing things from the point-of-view of other people as-well-as being objective enough about yourself that you can know what kind of impression you are making on others. 'Not expressing resentment', as well, is an art of a high order (dealing with emotional energy in general), beyond the obviousness that expressing resentment makes you look like a fool. In fact, Chesterfield paints a cumulative portrait in his letters of a human being who is not just 'going-through-the-correct-motions' but who is actually, potentially, more conscious (and capable of being more conscious) of himself and the world around him than the average human being usually is. Having said that, I'm sure Johnson saw enough trained monkeys (of the human kind) in his day fully capable of practicing these manners that Chesterfield describes, and so it's understandable that he may have cringed a little upon discovering their publication. Yet, hollow men (or mental vacuums) and fools aside these letters are worth the time of anybody interested in increasing their understanding of themselves, human nature in general, and society at any level.

While the prose is definitely that of the neoclassic, this text is filled with insight into the nature of society, relationships, business and leadership. I found a dusty old copy of this text in our university library when I was an undergraduate, and it has stayed with me throughout my life. Imagine that these are letters! Each one as carefully crafted as a published essay, and each with a specific point all aimed at the same goal: providing the author's son w/ the tools (weapons in some cases) necessary for success. Here's an example (a paraphrase, as I do not have the text at hand):

Each man is born with all the passions, but in each there is a governing passion which runs stronger and deeper than the rest. Seek out each man's governing passion, and when you have discovered it, remember never to trust him where that passion is concerned. Play upon it to your own advantage if you wish.

The text is full of wisdom such as this. I'm delighted that Amazon can find it for me.