Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Quotes
Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.
Stanhope, Philip Dormer. Letters to His Son on the Fine Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman. Edited by Oliver H. G. Leigh, M. Walter Dunne, 1901.
Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, was a British statesman, and a man of letters, and wit. Educated at Trinity Hall, Cambridge, he subsequently embarked on the Grand Tour of the Continent, to complete his education as a nobleman, by exposure to the cultural legacies of Classical antiquity and the Renaissance, and to become acquainted with his aristocratic counterparts and the polite society of Continental Europe.