Philip Stanhope (1694 – 1773)
British statesman and man of letters.
The herd of mankind can hardly be said to think; their notions are almost all adoptive; and, in general, I believe it is better that it should be so; as such common prejudices contribute more to order and quiet, than their own separate reasonings would do, uncultivated and unimproved as they are.
Women who are either indisputably beautiful, or indisputably ugly, are best flattered upon the score of their understandings; but those who are in a state of mediocrity are best flattered upon their beauty, or at least their graces; for every woman who is not absolutely ugly thinks herself handsome.
Advice is seldom welcome; and those who want it the most always like it the least.
Style is the dress of thoughts.
In short, let it be your maxim through life, to know all you can know, yourself; and never to trust implicitly to the informations of others.
Abject flattery and indiscriminate assentation degrade, as much as indiscriminate contradiction and noisy debate disgust. But a modest assertion of one’s own opinion, and a complaisant acquiescence in other people’s, preserve dignity.
The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap; it does not depend so much upon a man’s general expense, as it does upon his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all. A man, for instance, who should give a servant four shillings, would pass for covetous, while he who gave him a crown, would be reckoned generous; so that the difference of those two opposite characters, turns upon one shilling.
In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal and so ill-bred, as audible laughter.
Every woman is infallibly to be gained by every sort of flattery, and every man by one sort or other.
It is commonly said, and more particularly by Lord Shaftesbury, that ridicule is the best test of truth.
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 that you have one.
It is a great advantage for any man to be able to talk or hear, neither ignorantly nor absurdly, upon any subject; for I have known people, who have not said one word, hear ignorantly and absurdly; it has appeared by their inattentive and unmeaning faces.
Little minds mistake little objects for great ones, and lavish away upon the former that time and attention which only the latter deserve. To such mistakes we owe the numerous and frivolous tribe of insect-mongers, shell-mongers, and pursuers and driers of butterflies, etc. The strong mind distinguishes, not only between the useful and the useless, but likewise between the useful and the curious.
The nation looked upon him as a deserter, and he shrunk into insignificancy and an earldom.
The dews of the evening most carefully shun —
Those tears of the sky for the loss of the sun.
Women are much more like each other than men: they have, in truth, but two passions, vanity and love; these are their universal characteristics.
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.
Speak of the moderns without contempt, and of the ancients without idolatry.
Without some dissimulation no business can be carried on at all.
Our conjectures pass upon us for truths; we will know what we do not know, and often, what we cannot know: so mortifying to our pride is the base suspicion of ignorance.