Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield

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

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

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

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

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

Tyrawley and I have been dead these two years; but we don't choose to have it known.

Religion is by no means a proper subject of conversation in a mixed company.

Then in chat, or at play, with a dance, or a song, Let the night, like the day, pass with pleasure along. All cares, but of love, banish far from your mind; And those you may end, when you please to be kind.

Cheerful with wisdom, with innocence gay, And calm with your joys gently glide thro' the day. The dews of the evening most carefully shun — Those tears of the sky for the loss of the sun.

At twelve you may walk, for at this time o' the year, The sun like your wit, is as mild, as 'tis clear: But mark in the meadows the ruin of Time; Take the hint, and let life be improv'd in its prime.

Unlike my subject will I frame my song, It shall be witty, and it shan't be long.

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

The chapter of knowledge is a very short, but the chapter of accidents is a very long one.

I foresee, that before the end of this century, the trade of both King and Priest will not be half so good a one as it has been.

The idle story of the Pretender's having been introduced in a warming-pan, into the Queen's bed, though as destitute of all probability as of all foundation, has been much more prejudicial to the cause of Jacobitism, than all that Mr. …