Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield - Truth Quotes

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Women are much more like each other than men: they have, in truth, but two passions, vanity and love; these are their universal characteristics.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Common sense (which, in truth, is very uncommon) is the best sense I know of: abide by it; it will counsel you best.

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
It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. One yawns, one procrastinates, one can do it when one will, and therfore one seldom does it at all.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Our conjectures pass upon us for truths; we will know what we do not know, and often, what we cannot know: so mortifying to our pride is the base suspicion of ignorance.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
It is commonly said, and more particularly by Lord Shaftesbury, that ridicule is the best test of truth.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Remember, as long as you live, that nothing but strict truth can carry you through the world, with either your conscience or your honor unwounded.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Whatever poets may write, or fools believe, of rural innocence and truth, and of the perfidy of courts, this is most undoubtedly true,--that shepherds and ministers are both men; their natures and passions the same, the modes of them only different.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Truth, but not the whole truth, must be the invariable principle of every man who hath either religion, honour, or prudence. Thosewho violate it, may be cunning, but they are not able. Lies and perfidy are the refuge of fools and cowards.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Good breeding and good nature do incline us rather to help and raise people up to ourselves, than to mortify and depress them, and, in truth, our own private interest concurs in it, as it is making ourselves so many friends, instead of so many enemies.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
We are in truth, more than half what we are by imitation. The great point is to choose good models and to study them with care.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Most maxim-mongers have preferred the prettiness to the justness of a thought, and the turn to the truth; but I have refused myself to everything that my own experience did not justify and confirm.

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
Good manners, to those one does not love, are no more a breach of truth, than "your humble servant," at the bottom of a challengeis; they are universally agreed upon, and understand to be things of course. They are necessary guards of the decency and peace of society.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
It is hard to say which is the greatest fool: he who tells the whole truth, or he who tells no truth at all. Character is as necessary in business as in trade. No man can deceive often in either.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield