Philip Stanhope (1694 – 1773)
British statesman and man of letters.
Tyrawley and I have been dead these two years; but we don't choose to have it known.
Unlike my subject will I frame my song,
It shall be witty, and it shan't be long.
Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.
I recommend to you, in my last, an innocent piece of art: that of flattering people behind their backs, in presence of those who, to make their own court, much more than for your sake, will not fail to repeat, and even amplify, the praise to the party concerned. This is of all flattery the most pleasing, and consequently the most effectual.
Religion is by no means a proper subject of conversation in a mixed company.
Take the tone of the company you are in.
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."
Let this be one invariable rule of your conduct—never to show the least symptom of resentment, which you cannot, to a certain degree, gratify; but always to smile, where you cannot strike.
An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.
People will no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt.
It is an undoubted truth, that the less one has to do, the less time one finds to do it in. One yawns, one procrastinates, one can do it when one will, and therfore one seldom does it at all.
Patience, to hear frivolous, impertinent, and unreasonable applications: with address enough to refuse, without offending; or, by your manner of granting, to double the obligation: dexterity enough to conceal a truth, without telling a lie: sagacity enough to read other people’s countenances: and serenity enough not to let them discover anything by yours; a seeming frankness, with a real reserve. These are the rudiments of a politician; the world must be your grammar.
Do as you would be done by, is the surest method of pleasing.
A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things but cannot receive great ones.
Let dull critics feed upon the carcasses of plays; give me the taste and the dressing.
Whatever is worth doing at all, is worth doing well.