Top 88 Quotes & Sayings by Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a British celebrity Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield.
Last updated on December 25, 2024.
Any affectation whatsoever in dress implies, in my mind, a flaw in the understanding.
If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.
Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.
When a person is in fashion, all they do is right.
Learning is acquired by reading books, but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various facets of them.
Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.
I sometimes give myself admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it.
There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.
Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh.
Take the tone of the company you are in.
Never seem more learned than the people you are with. Wear your learning like a pocket watch and keep it hidden. Do not pull it out to count the hours, but give the time when you are asked.
A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things, but cannot receive great ones.
Whoever is in a hurry shows that the thing he is about is too big for him.
A novel must be exceptionally good to live as long as the average cat.
If you are not in fashion, you are nobody.
Wear your learning like your watch, in a private pocket; and do not pull it out, and strike it, merely to show that you have one.
The mere brute pleasure of reading - the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.
Pleasure is a necessary reciprocal. No one feels, who does not at the same time give it. To be pleased, one must please. What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you.
The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse, always harder. A young liar will be an old one, and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.
Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not merely pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one.
As fathers commonly go, it is seldom a misfortune to be fatherless; and considering the general run of sons, as seldom a misfortune to be childless.
The difference between a man of sense and a fop is that the fop values himself upon his dress; and the man of sense laughs at it, at the same time he knows he must not neglect it.
An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.
Good humor is the health of the soul, sadness is its poison.
The less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in.
Sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.
If ever a man and his wife, or a man and his mistress, who pass nights as well as days together, absolutely lay aside all good breeding, their intimacy will soon degenerate into a coarse familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust.
The world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description; one must travel through it one's self to be acquainted with it.
You must look into people as well as at them.
To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination.
In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it - thou art a fool.
Good breeding is the result of good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others.
Hear one side and you will be in the dark. Hear both and all will be clear.
There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.
Let your enemies be disarmed by the gentleness of your manner, but at the same time let them feel, the steadiness of your resentment.
The only solid and lasting peace between a man and his wife is, doubtless, a separation.
Young men are apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are apt to think themselves sober enough.
The more one works, the more willing one is to work.
Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance and without any visible reason.
Persist and persevere, and you will find most things that are attainable, possible.
Being pretty on the inside means you don't hit your brother and you eat all your peas - that's what my grandma taught me.
Custom has made dancing sometimes necessary for a young man; therefore mind it while you learn it, that you may learn to do it well, and not be ridiculous, though in a ridiculous act.
Politicians neither love nor hate. Interest, not sentiment, directs them.
Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
Patience is the most necessary quality for business, many a man would rather you heard his story than grant his request.
Women are only children of a larger growth. A man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humours and flatters them, as he does with a sprightly and forward child; but he neither consults them about, nor trusts them with, serious matters.
Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
Every man becomes, to a certain degree, what the people he generally converses with are.
Regularity in the hours of rising and retiring, perseverance in exercise, adaptation of dress to the variations of climate, simple and nutritious aliment, and temperance in all things are necessary branches of the regimen of health.
In matters of religion and matrimony I never give any advice; because I will not have anybody's torments in this world or the next laid to my charge.
Swift speedy time, feathered with flying hours, Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.
I am very sure that any man of common understanding may, by culture, care, attention, and labor, make himself what- ever he pleases, except a great poet.
Be wiser than other people if you can, but do not tell them so.
Our own self-love draws a thick veil between us and our faults.
Remember, as long as you live, that nothing but strict truth can carry you through the world, with either your conscience or your honor unwounded.
Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds.
In those days he was wiser than he is now - he used frequently to take my advice.
Men, as well as women, are much oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings.
I recommend you to take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves.
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