Philip Chesterfield Quotes & Sayings

To have frequent recourse to narrative betrays great want of imagination. — Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl Of Chesterfield

I assisted at the birth of that most significant word "flirtation," which dropped from the most beautiful mouth in the world. — Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl Of Chesterfield

The mere brute pleasure of reading - the sort of pleasure a cow must have in grazing. — Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl Of Chesterfield

I come now to another part of your letter, which is the orthography, if I may call bad spelling orthography. You spell induce, enduce; and grandeur, you spell grandure; two faults, of which few of my house-maids would have been guilty. I must tell you, that orthography, in the true sense of the word, is so absolutely necessary for a man of letters, or a gentleman, that one false spelling may fix a ridicule upon him for the rest of his life; and I know a man of quality, who never recovered the ridicule of having spelled wholesome without the w. — Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield

The more one works, the more willing one is to work. — Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl Of Chesterfield

Any affectation whatsoever in dress implies, in my mind, a flaw in the understanding. — Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl Of Chesterfield

When a person is in fashion, all they do is right. — Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl Of Chesterfield

I give my vote for Mr. Johnson to fill that great and arduous post. And I hereby declare that I make a total surrender of all my rights and privileges in the English language, as a freeborn British subject, to the said Mr. Johnson, during the term of his dictatorship. Nay more; I will not only obey him, like an old Roman, as my dictator, but, like a modern Roman, I will implicitly believe in him as my pope, and hold him to be infallible while in the chair; but no longer. — Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield

Swift speedy time, feathered with flying hours, Dissolves the beauty of the fairest brow. — Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl Of Chesterfield

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. — Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl Of Chesterfield

Remember, as long as you live, that nothing but strict truth can carry you through the world, with either your conscience or your honor unwounded. — Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl Of Chesterfield

Hear one side and you will be in the dark. Hear both and all will be clear. — Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl Of Chesterfield

Men have various subjects in which they may excel, or at least would be thought to excel, and though they love to hear justice done to them where they know they excel, yet they are most and best flattered upon those points where they wish to excel and yet are doubtful whether they do or not. — Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl Of Chesterfield

Dispatch is the soul of business. — Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl Of Chesterfield

In those days he was wiser than he is now - he used frequently to take my advice. — Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl Of Chesterfield