Tag: Philip Stanhope – 4th Earl of Chesterfield

The young leading the young, is like the blind leading the blind; “they will both fall into the ditch.”

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

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.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

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.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

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

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

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.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

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

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

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

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

We must not draw general conclusions from certain particular principles, though, in the main, true ones. We must not suppose that, because a man is a rational animal, he will therefore always act rationally; or, because he has such or such a predominant passion, that he will act invariably and consequentially in the pursuit of it. No. We are complicated machines: and though we have one main-spring, that gives motion to the whole, we have an infinity of little wheels, which, in their turns, retard, precipitate, and sometimes stop that motion.

Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield