Famous Quotes | Learn to shrink yourself to the...

Learn to shrink yourself to the size of the company you are in. Take their tone, whatever it may be, and excell in it if you can; but never pretend to give the tone. A free conversation will no more bear a dictator than a free government will. - Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield
Attribution: Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773), British statesman, man of letters. letter, Dec. 18, 1765, Chesterfield’s Letters to his Son and Others, p. 295, London, Dent (1796). Written to his godson Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl (1755-1815), a distant relative of Chesterfield’s, who eventually became his heir and successor.

Categories: Company, Conversation, Man Of Letters, Statesman

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