Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Quotes
A young man, be his merit what it will, can never raise himself; but must, like the ivy round the oak, twine himself round some man of great power and interest.
Stanhope, Philip Dormer. Letters Written by the Late Right Honourable Philip Dormer Stanhope, Earl of Chesterfield, to His Son. Vol. 4, J. Dodsley, 1774, p. 5.
When Tocqueville studied the United States, it was inferior to the England and the other European aristocracies in science, the arts, literature, philosophy, theology and most other intellectual fields of culture and human endeavor. He did not have the opportunity to observe the interactive, long term effects of freedom, democracy, and public education. The US would become the dominant cultural nation of the world, with the English language in far greater usage than at the height of the British Empire. American Science, literature, art developed with more and more people participating in and being educated for those areas and were free to create without the restraints of government or even cultural norms. American creativity was demonstrated by more new religions being created that than in any other nation on earth.
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.
