Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield - People Quotes

40 Sourced Quotes

View all Philip Stanhope Quotes
Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
I have seen many people, who, while you are speaking to them, instead of looking at, and attending to you, fix their eyes upon theceiling, or some other part of the room, look out of the window, play with a dog, twirl their snuff-box, or pick their nose. Nothing discovers a little, futile, frivolous mind more than this, and nothing is so offensively ill-bred.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Mind not only what people say, but how they say it; and if you have any sagacity, you may discover more truth by your eyes than by your ears. People can say what they will, but they cannot look just as they will; and their looks frequently (reveal) what their words are calculated to conceal.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
No man tastes pleasures truly, who does not earn them by previous business; and few people do business well, who do nothing else.

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
Great merit or great failings will make you respected or despised; but trifles, little attentions, mere nothings, either done or neglected, will make you either liked or disliked, in the general run of the world. Examine yourself, why you like such and such people and dislike such and such others; and you will find that those different sentiments proceed from very slight causes.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
People will, in a great degree, and not without reason, form their opinion of you upon that which they have of your friends; and there is a Spanish proverb which says vry justly, 'Tell me whom you live with, and I will tell you who you are.'

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
The best way to compel weak-minded people to adopt our opinion, is to frighten them from all others, by magnifying their danger.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Love has been not unaptly compared to the small-pox, which most people have sooner or later.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
You should not only have attention to everything, but a quickness of attention, so as to observe at once all the people in the room--their motions, their looks and their words--and yet without staring at them and seeming to be an observer.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
It is good breeding alone that can prepossess people in your favor at first sight, more time being necessary to discover greater talents.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
There are people who indulge themselves in a sort of lying, which they reckon innocent, and which in one sense is so; for it hurtsnobody but themselves. This sort of lying is the spurious offspring of vanity, begotten upon folly.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
If you will please people, you must please them in their own way.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Talk often, but never long; in that case, if you do not please, at least you are sure not to tire your hearers. Pay your own reckoning, but do not treat the whole company; this being one of the few cases in which people do not care to be treated, every one being fully convinced that he has wherewithal to pay.

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
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
I…could not help reflecting in my way upon the singular ill-luck of this my dear country, which, as long as ever I remember it, and as far back as I have read, has always been governed by the only two or three people, out of two or three millions, totally incapable of governing, and unfit to be trusted.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Every man becomes, to a certain degree, what the people he generally converses with are.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
People will no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Wit is so shining a quality that everybody admires it; most people aim at it, all people fear it, and few love it unless in themselves. A man must have a good share of wit himself to endure a great share of it in another.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
He makes people pleased with him by making them first pleased with themselves.

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
Patience, to hear frivolous, impertinent, and unreasonable applications: with address enough to refuse, without offending; or, by your manner of granting, to double the obligation: dexterity enough to conceal a truth, without telling a lie: sagacity enough to read other people's countenances: and serenity enough not to let them discover anything by yours; a seeming frankness, with a real reserve. These are the rudiments of a politician; the world must be your grammar.

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
I recommend to you, in my last, an innocent piece of art: that of flattering people behind their backs, in presence of those who, to make their own court, much more than for your sake, will not fail to repeat, and even amplify, the praise to the party concerned. This is of all flattery the most pleasing, and consequently the most effectual.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Observe it, the vulgar often laugh, but never smile, whereas well-bred people often smile, and seldom or never laugh. A witty thing never excited laughter, it pleases only the mind and never distorts the countenance.

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