A Quote by Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide; for the man is effectually destroyed, though the appetites of the brute may survive. — © Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide; for the man is effectually destroyed, though the appetites of the brute may survive.
I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide.
suicide is absolute, and if you think you will survive by hiding who you really are, you are sadly misled: there is no such thing as partial or intermittent suicide. You can only survive if you - who you really are - do survive.
It is all a question of sensitiveness. Brute force and overbearing may make a terrific effect. But in the end, that which lives by delicate sensitiveness. If it were a question of brute force, not a single human baby would survive for a fortnight. It is the grass of the field, most frail of all things, that supports all life all the time. But for the green grass, no empire would rise, no man would eat bread: for grain is grass; and Hercules or Napoleon or Henry Ford would alike be denied existence.
I've never been able to write poetry without having vast tracts of dead time. Poetry requires a certain kind of disciplined indolence that the world, including many prose writers, doesn't recognize as discipline. It is, though. It's the discipline to endure hours that you refuse to fill with anything but the possibility of poetry, though you may in fact not be able to write a word of it just then, and though it may be playing practical havoc with your life. It's the discipline of preparedness.
The question is, not what rights naturally belong to man, but how they may be most equally and effectually guarded in society.
In the faculty of speech man excels the brute; but if thou utterest what is improper, the brute is they superior.
He who knoweth not what he ought to know, is a brute beast among men; he that knoweth no more than he hath need of, is a man among brute beasts; and he that knoweth all that may be known, is as a God among men.
There's that popular misconception of man as something between a brute and an angel. Actually man is in transit between brute and God.
There was a long period when I was younger where people always talked about my size and I was going 'but look, I can play, though, I can play' but you look at it, to have a career, 12-13 years, you've got to be more than just a brute.
Every woman adores a Fascist, The boot in the face, the brute Brute heart of a brute like you.
You never can tell, though, with suicide notes, can you? In the planetary aggregate of all life, there are many more suicide notes than there are suicides. They're like poems in that respect, suicide notes: nearly everyone tries their hand at them some time, with or without the talent. We all write them in our heads. Usually the note is the thing. You complete it, and then resume your time travel. It is the note and not the life that is cancelled out. Or the other way round. Or death. You never can tell, though, can you, with suicide notes.
Lust may be in the heart, though it be not seen by others; as guests may be in the house, though they look not out at the windows.
Love is an appetite which, like all other appetites, is destroyed for the moment by its gratification.
Man has reason, discrimination and free-will such as it is. The brute has no such thing. It is not a free agent, and knows no distinction between virtue and vice, good and evil. Man, being a free agent, knows these distinctions, and when he follows his higher nature, shows himself far superior to the brute, but when he follows his baser nature can show himself lower than the brute.
They sell courage of a sort in the taverns. And another sort, though not for sale, a man can find in the confessional. Try the alehouses and the churches, Hugh. In either a man can be quiet and think.
If you lose your soul, there is a danger of its being destroyed. Therefore, you may not love it, since you do not want it to be destroyed. But in not wanting it to be destroyed, you love it.
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