Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Quotes

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Were you to converse with a king, you ought to be as easy and unembarrassed as with your own valet-de chambre; but yet every look,word, and action should imply the utmost respect.... You must wait till you are spoken to; you must receive, not give, the subject of conversation, and you must even take care that the given subject of such conversation do not lead you into any impropriety.

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
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
Nature has hardly formed a woman ugly enough to be insensible to flattery upon her person.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Without any extraordinary effort of genius, I have discovered that nature was the same three thousand years ago as at present; that men were but men then as well as now; that modes and customs vary often, but that human nature is always the same. And I can no more suppose, that men were better, braver, or wiser, fifteen hundred or three thousand years ago, than I can suppose that the animals or vegetables were better than they are now.

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
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
Though we cannot totally change our nature, we may in great measure correct it by reflection and philosophy; and some philosophy is a very necessary companion in this world, where, even to the most fortunate, the chances are greatly against happiness.

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
Nothing convinces persons of a weak understanding so effectually, as what they do not comprehend.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Real merit of any kind cannot long be concealed; it will be discovered, and nothing can depreciate it but a man exhibiting it himself. It may not always be rewarded as it ought; but it will always be known.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Deserve a great deal, and you shall have a great deal; deserve little, and you shall have but a little; and be good for nothing atall, and I assure you, you shall have nothing at all.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
A vulgar man is captious and jealous; eager and impetuous about trifles. He suspects himself to be slighted, and thinks everything that is said meant at him.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
The vulgar look upon a man, who is reckoned a fine speaker, as a phenomenon, a supernatural being, and endowed with some peculiargift of Heaven; they stare at him, if he walks in the park, and cry, that is he. You will, I am sure, view him in a juster light, and nulla formidine. You will consider him only as a man of good sense, who adorns common thoughts with the graces of elocution, and the elegancy of style. The miracle will then cease.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Whoever plays deep must necessarily lose his money or his character.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Awkwardness is a more real disadvantage than it is generally thought to be; it often occasions ridicule, it always lessens dignity.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Keep your own secret, and get out other people's. Keep your own temper, and artfully warm other people's. Counterwork your rivalswith diligence and dexterity, but at the same time with the utmost personal civility to them: and be firm without heat.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
A man who tells nothing, or who tells all, will equally have nothing told him.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
The company of women of fashion will improve your manners, though not your understanding; and that complaisance and politeness, which are so useful in men's company, can only be acquired in women's.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Gold and silver are but merchandise, as well as cloth or linen; and that nation that buys the least, and sells the most, must always have the most money.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Experience only can teach men not to prefer what strikes them for the present moment, to what will have much greater weight with the them hereafter.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
The permanency of most friendships depends upon the continuity of good fortune.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
The world can doubtless never be well known by theory: practice is absolutely necessary; but surely it is of great use to a young man, before he sets out for that country, full of mazes, windings, and turnings, to have at least a general map of it, made by some experienced traveler.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
The possibility of remedying imprudent actions is commonly an inducement to commit them.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
The New Year is the season in which custom seems more particularly to authorize civil and harmless lies, under the name of compliments. People reciprocally profess wishes which they seldom form and concern which they seldom feel.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Whenever I go to an opera, I leave my sense and reason at the door with my half-guinea, and deliver myself up to my eyes and my ears.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
The rulers of the earth are all worth knowing; they suggest moral reflections: and the respect that one naturally has for God's vice-regents here on earth is greatly increased by acquaintance with them.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Those who see and observe kings, heroes, and statesmen, discover that they have headaches, indigestion, humors and passions, just like other people; every one of which in their turns determine their wills in defiance of their reason.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
A rake is a composition of all the lowest, most ignoble, degrading, and shameful vices; they all conspire to disgrace his character, and to ruin his fortune; while wine and the pox content which shall soonest and most effectually destroy his constitution.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
I have, by long experience, found women to be like Telephus's spear: if one end kills, the other cures.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield