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
Do as you would be done by, is the surest method of pleasing.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Doing
Awkwardness is a more real disadvantage than it is generally thought to be: it often occasions ridicule, and always lessens dignity.
—Earl of Chesterfield
I look upon indolence as a sort of suicide; for the man is efficiently destroyed, though the appetite of the brute may survive.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Suicide, Idleness, Laziness
To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Storytelling
Words are the dress of thoughts; which should no more be presented in rags, tatters, and dirt than your person should
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Words
Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Humility, Modesty, Compliments
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
It has been said that ridicule is the best test of truth, for that it will not stick where it is not just. I deny it. A truth viewed in a certain light, and attacked in certain words, by men of wit and humor, may, and often doth, become ridiculous, at least so far that the truth is only remembered and repeated for the sake of the ridicule.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always like it the least.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Advice
He makes people pleased with him by making them first pleased with themselves.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Persuasion
In order to judge of the inside of others, study your own; for men in general are very much alike, and though one has one prevailing passion, and another has another, yet their operations are much the same; and whatever engages or disgusts, pleases, or offends you in others will engage, disgust, please or offend others in you.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Judgment
I am convinced that a light supper, a good night’s sleep, and a fine morning, have sometimes made a hero of the same man, who, by an indigestion, a restless night, and rainy morning, would have proved a coward.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Heroes, Heroes/Heroism, Cowardice, Coward, Heroism, Perspective, Sleep
The dews of evening—those tears of the sky for the loss of the sun.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Good manners are the settled medium of social, as specie is of commercial, life; returns are equally expected from both; and people will no more advance their civility to a bear than their money to a bankrupt.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Manners
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.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Vice, Virtue
There is a sort of veteran woman of condition, who, having lived always in the grand monde, and having possibly had some gallantries, together with the experience of five and twenty or thirty years, form a young fellow better than all the rules that can be given him. Wherever you go, make some of those women your friends; which a very little matter will do. Ask their advice, tell them your doubts or difficulties as to your behavior; but take great care not to drop one word of their experience; for experience implies age, and the suspicion of age, no woman, let her be ever so old, ever forgives.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Experience
Many new years you may see, but happy ones you cannot see without deserving them. These virtue, honor, and knowledge alone can merit, alone can produce.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Virtue
Women are much more like each other than men: they have, in truth, but two passions, vanity and love; these are their universal characteristics.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Vanity
The immoral man, who invades another’s property, is justly punished for it; and the ill bred man, who by his ill manners invades and disturbs the quiet and comforts of private life, is by common consent as justly banished society. For my own part, I really think, next to the consciousness of doing a good action, that of doing a civil one is the most pleasing; and the epithet which I should covet the most, next to that of Aristides (the Just), would be that of well bred.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Manners
Flattery, though a base coin, is the necessary pocket-money at court; where, by custom and consent, it has obtained such a currency, that it is no longer a fraudulent, but a legal payment.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Flattery
Ceremony is necessary as the outwork and defense of manners.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Defense, Manners
The world can doubtless never be well known by theory: practice is absolutely necessary; but surely it is of great use to a young man, before he sets out for that country, full of mazes, windings, and turnings, to have at least a general map of it, made by some experienced traveler.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Assumptions, Theory
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.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Age, Heart
Buy good books, and read them; the best books are the commonest, and the last editions are always the best, if the editors are not blockheads.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Books, Reading
I assisted at the birth of that most significant word flirtation, which dropped from the most beautiful mouth in the world, and which has since received the sanction of our most accurate Laureate in one of his comedies.
—Earl of Chesterfield
The elegance of the style, and the turn of the periods make the chief impression upon the hearers.—Most people have ears, but few have judgment; tickle those ears, and depend upon it, you will catch their judgments such as they are.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Speakers
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
When a person is in fashion, all they do is right.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Fashion
Idleness is the only refuge of weak minds, and the holiday of fools.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Idleness
Sex: the pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable.
—Earl of Chesterfield
Topics: Sex
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Francis Thompson English Poet
William Blackstone English Judge
Thomas Henry Huxley English Biologist
Edmund Spenser English Poet
E. V. Lucas English Author
Jane Austen English Novelist
Isaac Newton English Physicist
Jackie Collins English Romance Novelist
Philip James Bailey English Poet
Arthur Conan Doyle Scottish Writer