Quotation by Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, 4th Earl

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Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, 4th Earl (261)

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(first published 1774)(1774)Characters of Chesterfield, 1773, repr. Augustan Reprint Society nos. 259-260, p. 4, University of California, Los Angeles (1990)Characters of Chesterfield, 1778, repr. Augustan Reprint Society, nos. 259-260, p. 10, University of California, Los Angeles (1990)Characters of Chesterfield, 1778, repr. Augustan Reprint Society, nos. 259-260, p. 14, University of California, Los Angeles (1990)

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conversation (6) honor (6) fame (5) values (3) merit (3) sex (2) drinking (2) solitude (2) appearances (2) comparisons (2)

Endeavor, as much as you can, to keep company with people above you.... Do not mistake, when I say company above you, and think that I mean with regard to their birth; that is the least consideration; but I mean with regard to their merit, and the light in which the world considers them.

Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, 4th Earl

Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773), British statesman, man of letters. letter, Oct. 9, 1747, Letters Written by the Late Right Honourable Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl, Earl of Chesterfield, to his Son, Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl, Esq, 5th ed., vol. I, pp. 279-80, London (1774).

Since his fifteen-year-old son was illegitimate, Chesterfield was careful to discount the importance of birth in the advice he gave him.

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