Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Quotes

Do as you would be done by, is the surest method of pleasing.

The world is a country which nobody ever yet knew by description; one must travel through it one's self to be acquainted with it.

Courts and camps are the only places to learn the world in.

I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later.

There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.

An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.

The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.

Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.

Be wiser than other people if you can; but do not tell them so.

He adorned whatever subject he either spoke or wrote upon, by the most splendid eloquence.

The nation looked upon him as a deserter, and he shrunk into insignificancy and an earldom.

Marriage is the cure of love, and friendship the cure of marriage.

Tyrawley and I have been dead these two years; but we don't choose to have it known.

Religion is by no means a proper subject of conversation in a mixed company.

I see that you are in fears again from your White Boys, and have destroyed a good many of them; but I believe, that if the military force had killed half as many landlords, it would have contributed more effectually to restore quiet. The poor people in Ireland are used worse than negroes by their Lords and Masters, and their Deputies of Deputies of Deputies. For there is a sentiment in every human breast that asserts man's natural right to liberty and good usage, and that will, and ought to rebel when oppressed and provoked to a certain degree.