Quote#Wisdom
You had better refuse a favor gracefully, than to grant it clumsily.…
Quote byPhilip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield · 1694–1773
Commonly attributed — not confirmed in an authoritative edition. Cited on Wikiquote to: Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman (1774), 18 March 1751.
English (original)
You had better refuse a favor gracefully, than to grant it clumsily. Manner is all, in everything: it is by manner only that you can please, and consequently rise. All your Greek will never advance you from secretary to envoy, or from envoy to ambassador; but your address, your manner, your air, if good, very probably may.
— Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
More from Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield
Unlike my subject will I frame my song, It shall be witty, and it shan't be long.
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.
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.
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. …
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.