Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Earl of Chesterfield (English Statesman, Man of Letters)

Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) was an English statesman, diplomat, man of letters, and a much-admired wit of his time. Many of his leading contemporaries praised Chesterfield’s courteous manners, urbanity, and wit.

Stanhope wrote Lord Chesterfield’s Advice to his Son, on Men and Manners (1774,) a guide to manners and success, which essayist Samuel Johnson denounced as teaching “the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master.”

Born in London, Lord Chesterfield was a Member of Parliament 1715–c.1723. In 1730, he was made Lord Steward of the household. Until then, as a Whig, he had supported Sir Robert Walpole; but being expelled from office for voting against an excise bill, he became one of Walpole’s harshest antagonists. Chesterfield joined the ministry of Thomas Pelham-Holles in 1744, became Irish Lord Lieutenant in 1745, and was one of the principal secretaries of state in 1746.

Lord Chesterfield is the acclaimed author of Maxims, the popular title for the collection of letters of advice he wrote to his illegitimate son, to help him overcome the handicap of his birth (only legitimate sons could inherit.) The letters, dating from 1736, were published in 1774 by Philip’s widow. Originally titled Lord Chesterfield’s Advice to his Son, on Men and Manners; or, a New system of Education in Which the Principles of Politeness, the Art of Acquiring a Knowledge of the World, with Every Instruction Necessary to Form a Man of Honour, Virtue, Taste and Fashion are Laid Down, the letters are the forerunner of a modern self-help book.

Friendly with Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, John Gay, Voltaire, and Viscount Bolingbroke, Lord Chesterfield drew from Samuel Johnson a famous indignant letter. Besides the Letters to His Son, he also wrote Letters to his Godson and Successor (1890.) His Letters to Lord Huntingdon were published in 1923.

More: Wikipedia READ: Works by Earl of Chesterfield

Great talents, such as honor, virtue, learning, and parts, are above the generality of the world, who neither possess them themselves, nor judge of them rightly in others; but all people are judges of the lesser talents, such as civility, affability, and an obliging, agreeable address and manner, because they feel the good effects of them, as making society easy and pleasing.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Talent

Never hold anyone by the button or the hand in order to be heard out; for if people are unwilling to hear you, you had better hold your tongue than them.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Talking, Conversation

Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Reading

Few fathers care much for their sons, or at least, most of them care more for their money. Of those who really love their sons, few know how to do it.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Family

I recommend you to take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves.
Earl of Chesterfield

Prepare yourselves for the great world, as the athletes used to do for their exercises; oil your mind and your manners, to give them the necessary suppleness and flexibility; strength alone will not do, as young people are too apt to think.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Mind

The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not a closet.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Knowledge, Experience

Dress yourself fine, where others are fine, and plain, where others are plain; but take care always that your clothes are well made and fit you, for otherwise they will give you a very awkward sir.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Dress

I am very sure that any man of common understanding may, by culture, care, attention, and labor, make himself whatever he pleases, except a great poet.
Earl of Chesterfield

It is often more necessary to conceal contempt than resentment, the former being never forgiven, but the latter sometimes forgot. Wrongs are often forgiven; contempt never.
Earl of Chesterfield

There is hardly any place or any company where you may not gain knowledge, if you please; almost everybody know some one thing, and is glad to talk about that one thing.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Knowledge

The manner of speaking is full as important as the matter, as more people have ears to be tickled than understandings to judge.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Eloquence

Frequent and loud laughing is the characteristic of folly and ill-manners.—True wit never made a man laugh.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Laughter

You must look into other people as well as at them.
Earl of Chesterfield

Whoever is in a hurry shows that the thing he is about is too big for him.—Haste and hurry are very different things.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Haste, Action

In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal and so ill-bred, as audible laughter.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Laughter

Common sense is the best sense I know of.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Common Sense

Cautiously avoid speaking of the domestic affairs either of yourself, or of other people. Yours are nothing to them but tedious gossip; and theirs are nothing to you.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Family, Talking

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.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Flattery

I do by no means advise you to throw away your time in ransacking, like a dull antiquarian, the minute and unimportant parts of remote and fabulous times. Let blockheads read, what blockheads wrote.
Earl of Chesterfield

Real merit of any kind cannot long be concealed; it will be discovered, and nothing can depreciate it but a man exhibiting it himself. It may not always be rewarded as it ought; but it will always be known.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Merit

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.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Greatness & Great Things, Trifles, Life, Greatness

Patience is a most necessary qualification for business; many a man would rather you heard his story than granted his request. One must seem to hear the unreasonable demands of the petulant, unmoved, and the tedious details of the dull, untired. That is the least price that a man must pay for a high station.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Patience

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.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Example

A man of sense may be in haste, but can never be in a hurry.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Action

Look in the face of the person to whom you are speaking if you wish to know his real sentiments, for he can command his words more easily than his countenance.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Face

Silence and reserve suggest latent power. What some men think has more effect than what others say.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Silence, Thought

If you can once engage people’s pride, love, pity, ambition (or whatever is their prevailing passion) on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Reason, Pride

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.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Youth

To this principle of vanity, which philosophers call a mean one, and which I do not, I owe a great part of the figure which I have made in life.
Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Vanity

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