Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Quotes

Men are more easily governed through their vices than through their virtues.

Some women can be fooled all of the time, and all women can be fooled some of the time, but the same woman can't be fooled by the same man in the same way more than half of the time.

Men are rather reasoning than reasonable animals, for the most part governed by the impulse of passion.

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

We wouldn’t want to live in a world where we couldn’t be conned. Because, in effect, we would then be living in a world where we mistrusted or refused to trust anyone.

That's the power of the good con artist: the ability to identify your deepest need and exploit it. It's not about honesty or greed; we are all suckers for belief.

People, I have discovered, are layers and layers of secrets. You believe you know them, that you understand them, but their motives are always hidden from you, buried in their own hearts. You will never know them, but sometimes you decide to trust them.

They say if you get her, you could understand her better and she known to be a cheater, but that's only if you let her.

If you are often deceived by those around you, you may be sure that you deserve to be deceived; and that instead of railing at the general falseness of mankind, you have first to pronounce judgment on your own jealous tyranny, or on your own weak credulity.

You can't fight human nature. Ego is going to get the best of everyone. You're going to think you can trust someone when you can't. People who come in the Big Brother house have a strong sense of self and often it gets handed to them when they get evicted.

Philosophers conceive of the passions which harass us as vices into which men fall by their own fault, and, therefore, generally deride, bewail, or blame them, or execrate them, if they wish to seem unusually pious.

With a woman, always make good use of a secret. She will be proportionally grateful to you, like a scoundrel who grants his respect to an honest man he has been unable to swindle.

Through . . . lies you try to run your life and manipulate others. . . . Lies become an inhibitor in your relationship . . . .

Not to discover weakness is The Artifice of strength.

In this world, man has two significant possessions: intelligence and emotion. These two possessions govern our day-to-day life. But very often we see that emotion (ego) gets the upper hand in our life. We know that even if someone is extremely intelligent, when his emotion comes to the fore it will devour him. He is compelled to do what his emotion asks him to do.

Sometimes when you love people, you want to believe they're good.

There are two kinds of people in this world: people who want to be desired, and people who want to be desired so much that they pretend they don't.

You will find that reason, which always ought to direct mankind, seldom does; but that passions and weaknesses commonly usurp itsseat, and rule in its stead.

Poor fish of Rodondo! in your victimized confidence, you are of the number of those who inconsiderately trust, while they do not understand, human nature.

Passionate jealousy is not a good foster-parent for prudence.

One of the worst things about life is not how nasty the nasty people are. You know that already. It is how nasty the nice people can be.

Tis impossible to judge with much Præcision of the true Motives and Qualities of human Actions, or of the Propriety of Rules contrived to govern them, without considering with like Attention, all the Passions, Appetites, Affections in Nature from which they flow. An intimate Knowledge therefore of the intellectual and moral World is the sole foundation on which a stable structure of Knowledge can be erected.

She wants to believe my excuses so bad. Every time I lie, she wants to believe me so much.

Ronan's smile was sharp and hooked as one of the creature's claws. "'A sword is never a killer; it is a tool in the killer's hand'." "I can't believe Noah didn't stick around to help." "Sure you can. Never trust the dead.

I thought, "Why? and how did we evolve with this weak, and useless passion in tact within the deep heart's core?" And the answer as I've formulated it to myself is that empathy is the engine that powers all the best in us.