Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Quotes
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Assurance and intrepidity, under the white banner of seeming modesty, clear the way to merit that would otherwise be discouraged by difficulties.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Nothing convinces persons of a weak understanding so effectually, as what they do not comprehend.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
If you have wit, use it to please and not to hurt: you may shine like the sun in the temperate zones without scorching.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
To take a wife merely as an agreeable and rational companion, will commonly be found to be a grand mistake.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
No woman ever yet either reasoned or acted long together consequentially; but some little thing, some love, some resentment, somepresent momentary interest, some supposed slight, or some humour, always breaks in upon, and oversets their most prudent resolutions and schemes.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Nature has hardly formed a woman ugly enough to be insensible to flattery upon her person.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Young men are as apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are to think themselves sober enough. They look upon spirit to be a much better thing than experience; which they call coldness. They are but half mistaken; for though spirit without experience is dangerous, experience without spirit is languid and ineffective.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Those whom you can make like themselves better will, I promise you, like you very well.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Pleasure is the rock which most young people split upon; they launch out with crowded sails in quest of it, but without a compassto direct their course, or reason sufficient to steer the vessel; for want of which, pain and shame, instead of pleasure, are the returns of their voyage.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Cardinal Mazarin was a great knave, but no great man; much more cunning than able; scandalously false and dirtily greedy.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
I love every-day senses, every-day wit and entertainment; a man who is only good on holidays, is good for very little.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
When you have found out the prevailing passion of any man, remember never to trust him where that passion is concerned.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
All I desire for my own burial, is not to be buried alive; but how or where, I think, must be entirely indifferent to every rational creature.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Pray be always in motion. Early in the morning go and see things; and the rest of the day go and see people. If you stay but a week at a place, and that an insignificant one, see, however, all that is to be seen there; know as many people, and get into as many houses as ever you can.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Never write down your speeches beforehand; if you do, you may perhaps be a good declaimer, but will never be a debater.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Observe any meetings of people, and you will always find their eagerness and impetuosity rise or fall in proportion to their numbers.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
To this principle of vanity, which philosophers call a mean one, and which I do not, I owe a great part of the figure which I have made in life.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
I can hardly bring myself to caution you against drinking, because I am persuaded that I am writing to a rational creature, a gentleman, and not to a swine. However, that you may not be insensibly drawn into that beastly custom of even sober drinking and sipping, as the sots call it, I advise you to be of no club whatsoever.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Keep your hands clean and pure from the infamous vice of corruption, a vice so infamous that it degrades even the other vices thatmay accompany it. Accept no present whatever; let your character in that respect be transparent and without the least speck, for as avarice is the vilest and dirtiest vice in private, corruption is so in public life.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
A certain degree of fear produces the same effects as rashness.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield