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If you let that sort of thing go on, your bread and butter will be cut right out from under your feet.

Tuesday
Nov 04, 2025

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About Philip Dormer Shanhope, Lord Chesterfield

Philip Dormer Shanhope, Lord Chesterfield

Philip Dormer Shanhope, Lord Chesterfield
(1694-1773) English Statesman and Author

Popular Philip Dormer Shanhope, Lord Chesterfield Quotes

A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things but cannot receive great ones.

Ridicule is the best test of truth.

Modesty is the only sure bait when you angle for praise.

Firmness of purpose is one of the most necessary sinews of character, and one of the best instruments of success. Without it genius wastes its efforts in a maze of inconsistencies.

There is hardly anybody good for everything, and there is scarcely anybody who is absolutely good for nothing.

Advice is seldom welcome, and those who need it the most, like it the least.

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

Know the true value of time! Snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination. Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.

Style is the dress of thoughts ...; if your style is homely, coarse, and vulgar, they will appear to as much disadvantage, and be as ill received, as your person, though ever so well-proportioned, would if dressed in rags, dirt, and tatters.

Unlike my subject now shall be my song; It shall be witty, and it shan’t be long.

Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.

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.

Firmness of purpose is one of the best instruments of success.

A man of sense is never discouraged by difficulties; he redoubles his industry and his diligence, he perseveres, and infallibly prevails at last.

I knew once a very covetous, sordid *fellow, who used to say, 'Take care of the pence, for the pounds will take care of themselves.' [of W. Lowndes, Secretary of the Treasury in the reigns of King William, Queen Anne, and King George the Third.]

Patience is a most necessary quality for business: many a man would rather you heard his story than granted his request.

Real merit of any kind cannot long be concealed; it will be discovered, and nothing can depreciate it but a man exhibiting it himself. It may not always be rewarded as it ought; but it will always be known.

Never seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket, and do not pull it out and strike it merely to show you have one. If you are asked what o'clock it is, tell it, but do not proclaim it hourly and unasked, like the watchman.

Prepare yourself for the world, as athletes used to do for their exercises; oil your mind and your manners, to give them the necessary suppleness and flexibility; strength alone will not do.

Manners must adorn knowledge, and smooth its way through the world. Like a great rough diamond, it may do very well in a closet by way of curiosity, and also for its intrinsic value.

Those whom you can make like themselves better will, I promise you, like you very well.

There is hardly any place or any company where you may not gain knowledge, if you please; almost everybody knows some one thing, and is glad to talk about that one thing.

Learning is acquired by reading books; but the much more necessary learning, the knowledge of the world, is only to be acquired by reading man, and studying all the various editions of them.

Idleness is only the refuge of weak minds.

A man of sense may be in haste, but can never be in a hurry.

Great merit, or great failings, will make you respected or despised; but trifles, little attentions, mere nothings, either done or neglected, will make you either liked or disliked in the general run of the world.

Real friendship is a slow grower, and never thrives unless engrafted upon a stock of known and reciprocal merit.

I assisted at the birth of that most significant word 'flirtation,' which dropped from the most beautiful mouth in the world.

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.

The dews of the evening most carefully shun,— Those tears of the sky for the loss of the sun.

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

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

Dispatch is the soul of business.

An able man shows his spirit by gentle words and resolute actions. He is neither hot nor timid.

Distrust all those who love you extremely upon a very slight acquaintance and without any visible reason.

I recommend you to take care of the minutes, for the hours will take care of themselves.

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.

Wear your learning like your watch, in a private pocket; And do not pull it out and strike it merely to show that you have one.

Whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing well.

Knowledge is comfortable and a necessary retreat and shelter for us in advanced age, but if we do not plant it while young, it will give us no shade when we grow old.

Style is the dress of thoughts.

Let the great book of the world be your principle study.

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.

Know the true value of time; snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination: never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.

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

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.

Be your character what it will, it will be known; And nobody will take it upon your word.

The vulgar only laugh, but never smile; whereas well-bred people often smile, but seldom laugh.

There is hardly any place or any company where you may not gain knowledge, if you please; almost everybody knows someone thing, and is glad to talk about that one thing.

A light supper, a good night's sleep, and a fine morning have often made a hero of the same man who, by indigestion, a restless night, and a rainy morning, would have proved A coward.

Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable; however, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.

Idleness is the holiday of fools.

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