Top 77 Quotes by Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

Judgment is not upon all occasions required, but discretion always is.

Pleasure is a necessary reciprocal. No one feels, who does not at the same time give it. To be pleased, one must please. What pleases you in others, will in general please them in you.

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.

Men, as well as women, are much oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings.

Take the tone of the company you are in.

There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.

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

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.

Character must be kept bright as well as clean.

Whoever is in a hurry shows that the thing he is about is too big for him.