Lord Chesterfield
Lord Chesterfield
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield KG PCwas a British statesman, and a man of letters, and wit. 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. Educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, 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...
men thinking design
A cheerful, easy, open countenance will make fools think you a good-natured man, and make designing men think you an undesigning one.
experience wonder admire
Everything is worth seeing once, and the more one sees the less one either wonders or admires.
cottages manners court
Cottages have them (falsehood and dissimulation) as well as courts, only with worse manners.
wise men thinking
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.
morning people house
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.
company superiors
Choose the company of your superiors whenever you can have it.
men experience weight
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.
love family mother
Of those who really love their sons, few know how to do it. Some spoil them when they are young, and then quarrel with them when they are grown up, for having been spoiled; some love them like mothers, and attend only to the bodily health and strength of the hopes of their family, solemnize his birthday, and rejoice, like the subjects of the Great Mogul, at the increase of his bulk: while others, minding, as they think, only essentials, take pains and pleasure to see in their heir, all their favourite weaknesses and imperfections.
loss carpe-diem moments
The value of moments, when cast up, is immense, if well employed; if thrown away, their loss is irrevocable.
caring care pounds
I knew once a very covetous, sordid fellow [perhaps William Lowndes], who used to say, `Take care of the pence, for the pounds will take care of themselves.
gratitude imperfect burden
Gratitude is a burden upon our imperfect nature.
flower generosity benefits
Let us not only scatter benefits, but even strew flowers for our fellow-travellers, in the rugged ways of this wretched world.
dog eye play
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.
suicide looks look-up
I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide.