„I wish to God that you had as much pleasure in following my advice, as I have in giving it to you.“
— Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
5 February 1750
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield quotes
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Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Birthdate: 22. September 1694
Date of death: 24. March 1773
Other names: Philip Stanhope, Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4º Conde de Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Philip Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield, Philip Chesterfield, IV° Conte di Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, was a British statesman, diplomat, man of letters, and an acclaimed wit of his time. He was born in London to Philip Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Chesterfield, and Lady Elizabeth Savile, and known as Lord Stanhope until the death of his father, in 1726. Following the death of his mother in 1708, Stanhope was raised mainly by his grandmother, the Marchioness of Halifax. Educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he left just over a year into his studies, after focusing on languages and oration. He subsequently embarked on the Grand Tour of the Continent, to complete his education as a nobleman, by exposure to the cultural legacies of Classical antiquity and the Renaissance, and to become acquainted with his aristocratic counterparts and the polite society of Continental Europe.In the course of his post-graduate tour of Europe, the death of Queen Anne and the accession of King George I to the throne opened a political career for Stanhope, and he quickly returned to England. A member of the Whig party, Phillip Stanhope entered government service as a courtier to the King, through the mentorship of his relative, James Stanhope, , the King's favourite minister, who procured his appointment as Lord of the Bedchamber to the Prince of Wales, George II. Wikipedia
Photo: Allan Ramsay, National Portrait Gallery: NPG 533 / Public domain
Quotes Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
„We must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will, therefore, always act rationally; or, because he has such or such a predominant passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in pursuit of it.“
— Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
19 December 1749
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
Context: We must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will, therefore, always act rationally; or, because he has such or such a predominant passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in pursuit of it. No, we are complicated machines; and though we have one main spring that gives motion to the whole, we have an infinity of little wheels, which, in their turns, retard, precipitate, and sometime stop that motion.
„Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.“
— Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
The French attribute this to the painter Nicolas Poussin (born 15 June 1594) "Ce qui vaut la peine d'être fait vaut la peine d'être bien fait"
Disputed
„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
22 February 1748
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
„Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade, as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one’s own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence in other people’s, preserve dignity.“
— Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
10 August 1749
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
„Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings; but those who are in a state of mediocrity are best flattered upon their beauty, or at least their graces; for every woman who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome.“
— Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
5 September 1748
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
„Every woman is infallibly to be gained by every sort of flattery, and every man by one sort or other.“
— Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
16 March 1752
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
„Little minds mistake little objects for great ones, and lavish away upon the former that time and attention which only the latter deserve. To such mistakes we owe the numerous and frivolous tribe of insect-mongers, shell-mongers, and pursuers and driers of butterflies, etc. The strong mind distinguishes, not only between the useful and the useless, but likewise between the useful and the curious.“
— Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
6 December 1748
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
„Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.“
— Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
19 November 1745
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
„Without some dissimulation no business can be carried on at all.“
— Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
22 May 1749
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
„Courts and camps are the only places to learn the world in.“
— Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
2 October 1747
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
„There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.“
— Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
14 April 1747
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
„Dispatch is the soul of business.“
— Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
5 February 1750
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
„A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things but cannot receive great ones.“
— Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Generally attributed to Lord Chesterfield, the first publication of this yet located is in a section of proverbs called "Diamond Dust" in Eliza Cook's Journal, No. 98 (15 March 1851), with the first attribution to Chesterfield as yet located in: Many Thoughts of Many Minds (1862) edited by Henry Southgate
Disputed
„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
19 December 1749
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
„The manner is often as important as the matter, sometimes more so.“
— Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
1751
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
„The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap; it does not depend so much upon a man’s general expense, as it does upon his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all. A man, for instance, who should give a servant four shillings, would pass for covetous, while he who gave him a crown, would be reckoned generous; so that the difference of those two opposite characters, turns upon one shilling.“
— Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
15 January 1753
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
„I am sure that since I have had the full use of my reason, nobody has ever heard me laugh.“
— Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
9 March 1748
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
„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.“
— Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
2 October 1747
Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774)
