Philip Dormer Stanhope Quotes

Gratitude is a burden upon our imperfect nature, and we are but too willing to ease ourselves of it, or at least to lighten it as much as we can.

Common sense is the best sense I know of

Common sense (which, in truth, is very uncommon) is the best sense I know of: abide by it; it will counsel you best.

Keep your own secret, and get out other people's.

Courts are, unquestionably, the seats of politeness and good breeding; were they not so, they would be the seats of slaughter and desolation. Those who now smile upon and embrace, would affront and stab, each other, if manners did not interpose.

I wish to God that you had as much pleasure in following my advice, as I have in giving it to you.

We are really so prejudiced by our educations, that, as the ancients deified their heroes, we deify their madmen.

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

A man is fit for neither business nor pleasure, who either cannot, or does not, command and direct his attention to the present object, and, in some degree, banish for that time all other objects from his thoughts.

If you have an hour, will you not improve that hour, instead of idling it away?

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

Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.

Secret thoughts and an open countenance will take you safely the world over

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 they year, if you will do two things at a time.

Honest error is to be pitied not ridiculed.

The steady and undissipated attention to one object is a sure mark of a superior genius; as hurry, bustle, and agitation are the never-failing symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind.

In seeking wisdom thou art wise; in imagining that thou hast attained it - thou art a fool.

I recommend you take care of the minutes: for hours take care of themselves

There are several short intervals during the day, between studies and pleasures: instead of sitting idle and yawning, in those intervals, take up any book, though ever so trifling a one, even down to a jest-book; it is still better than doing nothing.

I recommend to you to take care of the minutes; for hours will take care of themselves. I am very sure, that many people lose two or three hours every day, by not taking care of the minutes.

Dissimulate, but do not simulate, disguise your real sentiments, but do not falsify them. Go through the world with your eyes and ears open and mouth mostly shut. When new or stale gossip is brought to you, never let on that you know it already, nor that it really interests you.

People not used to the world … are unskillful enough to show what they have sense enough not to tell.

Idleness is only the refuge of weak
minds, and the holiday of fools.

There is nothing that people bear more impatiently, or forgive less, than contempt; and an injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.