Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Quotes

Am I really cool? You're telling me I'm cool? Well, that's good to hear.

I'd grown accustomed to seeing myself as someone who, if fallible and unworthy, had nevertheless managed to do one thing well enough to get recognition for it.

I want to be regarded as the best guy in the world, and I want to beat the best guy in the world.

Success serves men as a pedestal. It makes them seem greater when not measured by reflection.

You are always flattered when big clubs are interested in you.

The awards world can be ridiculous, but I'm not one to bash it. I love awards! When I've been nominated for Emmys and when I won my DGA Award, I couldn't have been happier. I always liked getting a gold star in class.

The proud depend upon the world to tell them whether they have value or not. Their self-esteem is determined by where they are judged to be on the ladders of worldly success. They feel worthwhile as individuals if the numbers beneath them in achievement, talent, beauty, or intellect are large enough.

The noblest spirit is most strongly attracted by the love of glory.

Yes I have made a lot of money and I have a lot of respect, my films have done well, and I know there are loads of loads of people who look up to me and really love me. I really just thought this is like a strange dream. I have never thought this is a success - I don't have a standard.

As successful as it may appear I am, I don't really feel that. It's like, you know you've achieved some level of success, and you know what you've done, and yet you still feel you have more to do and more to prove.

People say to me, 'You're a genius; you're great.' I don't know if I'll ever feel that way about myself. Some things, I feel like, are better left for other people to say, and I'm just not into, like, tooting my own horn or bragging or anything.

All these years, when someone praised my work, I would feel lucky.

I still don't feel like I've made it. I can't imagine ever feeling like I've made it.

I want to be great. I want to prove to everybody that I am great.

You sort of feel when you are given an award, you feel like, well then you have got to do something to deserve having been given the award. It worked differently with me cause I didn't feel that I had done enough.

Even people who despise ego and aspire to humility, who plan to be humble once they are successful, are worried that actually enacting those beliefs would sentence them to a life of obscurity or weakness or failure.

I believe that I am one of the greats of this generation.

I was just, like, all I want to do is be really good at something. Really, really good at something, so people are vaguely impressed by me.

The need to make sure everyone knows all of the great stuff about us is usually an insecurity in itself.

I can't help feeling that I am not a very important person, and being treated like one gives me strange feelings.

There is always something to prove.

I don't trust too much in personal trophies.

I want to be something that is worthy to be bragged about.

All your life, other people will try to take your accomplishments away from you. Don't you take it away from yourself.

The greatest human virtue bears no proportion to human vanity. We always think ourselves better than we are, and are generally desirous that others should think us still better than we think ourselves. To praise us for actions or dispositions which deserve praise is not to confer a benefit, but to pay a tribute. We have always pretensions to fame which, in our own hearts, we know to be disputable, and which we are desirous to strengthen by a new suffrage; we have always hopes which we suspect to be fallacious, and of which we eagerly snatch at every confirmation.