Words matter. These are the best Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
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.
Gratitude is a burden upon our imperfect nature, and we are but too willing to ease ourselves of it, or at least to lighten it as much as we can.
Every man becomes, to a certain degree, what the people he generally converses with are.
The mere brute pleasure of reading – the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing.
Learning is acquired by reading books, but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading men, and studying all the various facets of them.
Character must be kept bright as well as clean.
Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.
The less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in.
If you are not in fashion, you are nobody.
The rich are always advising the poor, but the poor seldom return the compliment.
Judgment is not upon all occasions required, but discretion always is.
A young man, be his merit what it will, can never raise himself; but must, like the ivy round the oak, twine himself round some man of great power and interest.
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.
I sometimes give myself admirable advice, but I am incapable of taking it.
The difference between a man of sense and a fop is that the fop values himself upon his dress; and the man of sense laughs at it, at the same time he knows he must not neglect it.
The world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description; one must travel through it one’s self to be acquainted with it.
In matters of religion and matrimony I never give any advice; because I will not have anybody’s torments in this world or the next laid to my charge.
Custom has made dancing sometimes necessary for a young man; therefore mind it while you learn it, that you may learn to do it well, and not be ridiculous, though in a ridiculous act.
A wise man will live as much within his wit as within his income.
Being pretty on the inside means you don’t hit your brother and you eat all your peas – that’s what my grandma taught me.
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 merely pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one.
Good breeding is the result of good sense, some good nature, and a little self-denial for the sake of others.
In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it – thou art a fool.
Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance and without any visible reason.
As fathers commonly go, it is seldom a misfortune to be fatherless; and considering the general run of sons, as seldom a misfortune to be childless.
Knowledge of the world in only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.
To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination.
Good humor is the health of the soul, sadness is its poison.
Our prejudices are our mistresses; reason is at best our wife, very often heard indeed, but seldom minded.
Swift speedy time, feathered with flying hours, Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow.
The heart never grows better by age; I fear rather worse, always harder. A young liar will be an old one, and a young knave will only be a greater knave as he grows older.
Let your enemies be disarmed by the gentleness of your manner, but at the same time let them feel, the steadiness of your resentment.
Whoever is in a hurry shows that the thing he is about is too big for him.
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.
Be wiser than other people if you can, but do not tell them so.
When a person is in fashion, all they do is right.
Inferiority is what you enjoy in your best friends.
Regularity in the hours of rising and retiring, perseverance in exercise, adaptation of dress to the variations of climate, simple and nutritious aliment, and temperance in all things are necessary branches of the regimen of health.
In those days he was wiser than he is now – he used frequently to take my advice.
Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds.
Words, which are the dress of thoughts, deserve surely more care than clothes, which are only the dress of the person.
Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.
A novel must be exceptionally good to live as long as the average cat.
In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal, and so ill-bred, as audible laughter.
I recommend you to take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves.
If ever a man and his wife, or a man and his mistress, who pass nights as well as days together, absolutely lay aside all good breeding, their intimacy will soon degenerate into a coarse familiarity, infallibly productive of contempt or disgust.
Never seem more learned than the people you are with. Wear your learning like a pocket watch and keep it hidden. Do not pull it out to count the hours, but give the time when you are asked.
Our own self-love draws a thick veil between us and our faults.
Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
Vice, in its true light, is so deformed, that it shocks us at first sight; and would hardly ever seduce us, if it did not at first wear the mask of some virtue.
Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
Young men are apt to think themselves wise enough, as drunken men are apt to think themselves sober enough.
Men, as well as women, are much oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings.
There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.
Let them show me a cottage where there are not the same vices of which they accuse the courts.
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.
If you would convince others, seem open to conviction yourself.
A man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humors and flatters them, as he does with a sprightly and forward child; but he neither consults them about, nor trusts them with, serious matters.
Any affectation whatsoever in dress implies, in my mind, a flaw in the understanding.
I find, by experience, that the mind and the body are more than married, for they are most intimately united; and when one suffers, the other sympathizes.
