Frases de Philip Stanhope Chesterfield

página 2

“Seja mais sábio que as outras pessoas, se você consegue; mas nunca lhes diga isso.”

“Sexo: o prazer é momentâneo, a posição é ridícula e as despesas são exorbitantes.”

“Se queres convencer os outros, deves parecer pronto a ser convencido.”

“O modo de se vestir é uma preocupação ridícula. Mas é muito ridículo para um homem não estar bem vestido.”

“Sempre que uma pessoa pede o nosso conselho, geralmente procura o nosso elogio.”

“Ociosidade é apenas o refúgio das mentes fracas.”

“Um homem sábio viverá tanto nos limites da sua presença de espírito quanto nos dos seus próprios rendimentos.”

“Um espírito mesquinho é como um microscópio: aumenta as pequenas coisas, mas impede de ver as grandes.”

“Esquece-se muito antes uma ferida do que um insulto.”

“O conhecimento do mundo apenas pode ser adquirido no mundo, não num armário.”

“Tenho a certeza que, desde que pude fazer pleno uso da minha razão, nunca mais ninguém me ouviu rir.”

“Tudo o que vale a pena ser feito merece e exige ser bem feito.”

“O conselho raramente é bem recebido e quem mais necessita dele é quem menos o aprecia.”

“Sê mais sábio que os outros se puderes, mas não digas isso a eles.”

“Modéstia é o único isco certeiro quando você procura um elogio.”

“A maioria das artes exige longo estudo e aplicação, porém, a mais bela de todas, a simpatia, apenas exige vontade.”

“Uma livraria é uma preciosa catacumba onde estão embalsamados e imortalmente conservados os espíritos dos mortos que não morrem.”

“Se tens espírito, usa-o para agradar e não para ferir.”

“Use a sua erudição como se fosse um relógio de bolso: não saque dela para mostrar as horas, mas diga que horas são se alguém lhe perguntar.”

“Jovens guiando jovens são como cegos guiando cegos.”

“Existem certas ocasiões em que um homem tem de revelar metade do seu segredo para manter oculto o resto.”

“As palavras são as roupas dos pensamentos que, da mesma forma que a sua pessoa, não devem ser apresentadas em farrapos, descompostos e sujos.”

“Entra no tom da companhia em que estás.”

“Os políticos não conhecem nem o ódio, nem o amor. São conduzidos pelo interesse e não pelo sentimento.”

“Quem tem pressa demonstra que aquilo que está a fazer é demasiado grande para si.”

“A maior parte das pessoas fica feliz com a inferioridade dos seus melhores amigos.”

“A mais lamentável de todas as perdas é a perda do tempo.”

“It is commonly said, and more particularly by Lord Shaftesbury, that ridicule is the best test of truth.”

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

“Knowledge may give weight, but accomplishments give luster, and many more people see than weigh.”

“Speak of the moderns without contempt, and of the ancients without idolatry.”

“A weak mind is like a microscope, which magnifies trifling things but cannot receive great ones.”

“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.”

“The knowledge of the world is only to be acquired in the world, and not in a closet.”

“A proper secrecy is the only mystery of able men; mystery is the only secrecy of weak and cunning ones.”

“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 manner is often as important as the matter, sometimes more so.”

“An injury is much sooner forgotten than an insult.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

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

“Take the tone of the company you are in.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“In my mind, there is nothing so illiberal and so ill-bred, as audible laughter.”

“Let dull critics feed upon the carcasses of plays; give me the taste and the dressing.”

“Let blockheads read what blockheads wrote.”

“The young leading the young, is like the blind leading the blind; “they will both fall into the ditch.””

“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.”

“I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later.”

“Do as you would be done by, is the surest method of pleasing.”

“I recommend you to take care of the minutes: for hours will take care of themselves.”