Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Quotes
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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
A young fellow ought to be wiser than he should seem to be; and an old fellow ought to seem wise whether he really be so or not.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
There is a sort of veteran women of condition, who, having lived always in the grand mode, and having possibly had some gallantries, together with the experience of five and twenty or thirty years, form a young fellow better than all the rules that can be given him.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
In business be as able as you can, but do not be cunning; cunning is the dark sanctuary of incapacity.
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Enjoy pleasures, but let them be your own, and then you will taste them.
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
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
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
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