Famous Quotes by Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield
- Patience, to hear frivolous, impertinent, and unreasonable applications: with address enough to... More
- A seeming ignorance is very often a most necessary part of worldly knowledge. It is, for... More
- A prudent cuckold (and there are many such at Paris) pockets his horns, when he cannot gore with... More
- Young men are as apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are to think themselves... More
- A proper secrecy is the only mystery of able men; mystery is the only secrecy of weak and cunning... More
- Judgment is not upon all occasions required, but discretion always is. More
- Religion is by no means a proper subject of conversation in mixed company; it should only be... More
- Never write down your speeches beforehand; if you do, you may perhaps be a good declaimer, but... More
- I can hardly bring myself to caution you against drinking, because I am persuaded that I am... More
- In business be as able as you can, but do not be cunning; cunning is the dark sanctuary of... More
- Should you be unfortunate enough to have vices, you may, to a certain degree, even dignify them... More
- Give nobly to indigent merit, and do not refuse your charity even to those who have not merit but... More
- The world can doubtless never be well known by theory: practice is absolutely necessary; but... More
- Whoever is admitted or sought for, in company, upon any other account than that of his merit and... More
- Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise. More
- Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote. More
- A man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humours and flatters them, as he does... More
- It is commonly said ... that ridicule is the best test of truth; for that it will not stick where... More
- If you can once engage people’s pride, love, pity, ambition (or whatever is their prevailing... More
- Style is the dress of thoughts; and let them be ever so just, if your style is homely, coarse,... More
- Most people have ears, but few have judgment; tickle those ears, and depend upon it you will... More
- Every thing in his composition was little; and he had all the weaknesses of a little mind,... More
- She loved money, but could occasionally part with it, especially to men of learning, whose... More
- His poor, crazy, deformed body was a mere Pandora’s box, containing all the physical ills that... More
- George the first was an honest, dull, German gentleman, as unfit as unwilling to act the part of... More
- His youth was distinguished by all the tumult and storm of pleasures, in which he licentiously... More
- His breast was the seat of all those passions which degrade our nature, and disturb our reason.... More
- The nation looked upon him as a deserter, and he shrunk into insignificancy and an earldom.... He... More
- In private life he was good-natured, chearful, social; inelegant in his manners, loose in his... More
- He degraded himself by the vice of drinking, which, together with a great stock of Greek and... More
- He had a gentleman-like frankness in his behaviour, and as a great point of honour as a minister... More
- He had not the least pride of birth and rank, that common narrow notion of little minds, that... More
- By all those, who are not much acquainted with him, he was considered infinitely below his level;... More
- Men are apt to mistake, or at least to seem to mistake, their own talents, in hopes, perhaps, of... More
- He was good-natured to a degree of weakness, even to tears, upon the slightest occasions.... More
- He was as jealous of his power as an impotent lover of his mistress, without activity of mind... More
- While abroad, he met with a very salacious English woman, whose liberality retrieved his fortune,... More
- His eloquence was of every kind, and he excelled in the argumentative as well as in the... More
- The law before us, my lords, seems to be the effect of that practice of which it is intended... More
- I am told that Duclos’ book is not in vogue in Paris, and that it is being violently... More
- There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once;... More
- If you love music, hear it; go to operas, concerts and pay fiddlers to play to you; but I insist... More
- Whoever incites anger has a strong insurance against indifference. More
- Though we cannot totally change our nature, we may in great measure correct it by reflection and... More
- Good manners, to those one does not love, are no more a breach of truth, than “your humble... More
- In the course of the world, a man must very often put on an easy, frank countenance, upon very... More
- A learned parson, rusting in his cell at Oxford or Cambridge, will reason admirably well on the... More
- Truth, but not the whole truth, must be the invariable principle of every man who hath either... More
- Singularity is only pardonable in old age and retirement; I may now be as singular as I please,... More
- Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade, as much as indiscriminate contradiction... More
- Ties of blood are not always ties of friendship; but friendship founded on merit, on esteem, and... More
- When griefs are genuine, I find, there is nothing more vacuous, more burdensome, or even more... More
- The King [Charles II] after the Restoration accused the poet, Edmund Waller, of having made finer... More
- I have been grateful to you from the day you turned your attention to the follies and fanaticisms... More
- Horse-play, romping, frequent and loud fits of laughter, jokes, waggery, and indiscriminate... More
- A constant smirk upon the face, and a whiffling activity of the body, are strong indications of... More
- No man tastes pleasures truly, who does not earn them by previous business; and few people do... More
- Remember, that when I speak of pleasures I always mean the elegant pleasures of a rational being,... More
- Remember that whatever knowledge you do not solidly lay the foundation of before you are... More
- Knowledge is a comfortable and necessary retreat and shelter for us in an advanced age; and if we... More
- I knew a gentleman who was so good a manager of his time that he would not even lose that small... More
- Our conjectures pass upon us for truths; we will know what we do not know, and often, what we... More
- There is always a degree of ridicule that attends a disappointment, though often very unjustly,... More
- Learn to shrink yourself to the size of the company you are in. Take their tone, whatever it may... More
- A wise man will live as much within his wit as his income.... Bear this truth always in your... More
- We must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will, therefore, always act... More
- In the mass of mankind, I fear, there is too great a majority of fools and knaves; who, singly... More
- People will no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt. More
- Armies, though always the supporters and tools of absolute power for the time being, are always... More
- It seems to me that physical sickness softens, just as moral sickness hardens, the heart. More
- The New Year is the season in which custom seems more particularly to authorize civil and... More
- Conscious virtue is the only solid foundation of all happiness; for riches, power, rank, or... More
- Six, or at most seven, hours’ sleep is, for a constancy, as much as you or anybody can want:... More
- The company of women of fashion will improve your manners, though not your understanding; and... More
- I would rather have a young fellow too much than too little dressed: the excess on that side will... More
- In friendship, as well as in love, the mind is often the dupe of the heart. More
- There is not a more prudent maxim, than to live with one’s enemies as if they may one day... More
- I heartily wish you, in the plain home-spun style, a great number of happy new years, well... More
- An honest man may really love a pretty girl, but only an idiot marries her merely because she is... More
- Women of fashion and character—I do not mean absolutely unblemished—are a necessary... More
- Little minds mistake little objects for great ones, and lavish away upon the former that time and... More
- The late Président de Montesquieu told me that he knew how to be blind—he had been so for such... More
- The receipt to make a speaker, and an applauded one too, is short and easy.—Take of common... More
- You will find that reason, which always ought to direct mankind, seldom does; but that passions... More
- The vulgar look upon a man, who is reckoned a fine speaker, as a phenomenon, a supernatural... More
- I have, by long experience, found women to be like Telephus’s spear: if one end kills, the... More
- Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, that it shocks us at first sight; and would hardly ever... More
- Many young people adopt pleasures for which they have not the least taste, only because they are... More
- Statesmen and beauties are very rarely sensible of the gradations of their decay; and, too... More
- Business by no means forbids pleasures; on the contrary, they reciprocally season each other; and... More
- I wish to God that you had as much pleasure in following my advice, as I have in giving it to you. More
- Without any extraordinary effort of genius, I have discovered that nature was the same three... More
- The herd of mankind can hardly be said to think; their notions are almost all adoptive; and, in... More
- Can an author with reason complain that he is cramped and shackled if he is not at liberty to... More
- I often wish for the end of the wretched remnant of my life; and that wish is a rational one; but... More
- The sure characteristic of a sound and strong mind is, to find, in everything, those certain... More
- Remember to take the best dancing master at Berlin, more to teach you to sit, stand, and walk... More
- There is a sort of veteran women of condition, who, having lived always in the grand mode, and... More
- How often should a woman be pregnant? Continually, or hardly ever? Or must there be a certain... More
- I am provoked at the contempt which most historians show for humanity in general; one would think... More
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