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...
mind half purpose
Whatever you do, do it to the purpose; do it thoroughly, not superficially. Go to the bottom of things. Any thing half done, or half known, is in my mind, neither done nor known at all. Nay, worse, for it often misleads.
errors honest
Honest error is to be pitied not ridiculed.
strong anger indifference
Whoever incites anger has a strong insurance against indifference.
equality men
A man who tells nothing, or who tells all, will equally have nothing told him.
fire poetry forgiving
I am grown old, and have possibly lost a great deal of that fire, which formerly made me love fire in others at any rate, and however attended with smoke: but now I must have all sense, and cannot, for the sake of five righteous lines, forgive a thousand absurd ones.
song witty long
Unlike my subject will I frame my song, It shall be witty and it shan't be long.
music country art
Sculpture and painting are very justly called liberal arts; a lively and strong imagination, together with a just observation, being absolutely necessary to excel in either; which, in my opinion, is by no means the case of music, though called a liberal art, and now in Italy placed even above the other two--a proof of the decline of that country.
experience wonder admire
Everything is worth seeing once, and the more one sees the less one either wonders or admires.
elegance exalted refined
Elegance of manner is the outgrowth of refined and exalted sense.
insult-to-injury people forgiving
There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt: and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.
liars lying believe
One man affirms that he has rode post a hundred miles in six hours; probably it is a lie; but supposing it to be true, what then? Why, he is a very good post-boy; that is all. Another asserts, and probably not without oaths, that he has drunk six or eight bottles of wine at a sitting; out of charity I will believe him a liar; for if I do not, I must think him a beast.
manners ceremony
Ceremonies are the outworks of 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.
cottages manners court
Cottages have them (falsehood and dissimulation) as well as courts, only with worse manners.