Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield Quotes

Age considers; youth ventures.

Folly always knows the answer.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

When you're young, you're cocky.

Rash, inexperienced youth holds itself a chosen instrument, and allows itself unbounded license.

Rashness is the companion of youth, prudence of old age.

If we humans are good at anything, it’s thinking we’ve got a terrific idea and going for it without acknowledging the potential consequences or our own ignorance.

All is not gold that glitters, as we have often been told; and the adage is verified in your place and my favour; but if what happens does not make us richer, we must bid it welcome, if it makes us wiser.

I don't think about risks much. I just do what I want to do. If you gotta go, you gotta go.

Great good nature without prudence is a great misfortune.

Have I not walked without an upward look Of caution under stars that very well Might not have missed me when they shot and fell? It was a risk I had to take-and took.

No, that is the great fallacy: the wisdom of old men. They do not grow wise. They grow careful.

The wise speak only of what they know

A wise man knows; learn from others, never get complacent and know where the classic old dangers come from.

Timidity can be as dangerous as rashness.

There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.

But let the wise be warned against too great readiness to explanation: it multiplies the sources of mistake, lengthening the sum for reckoners sure to go wrong.

He that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left the path of wisdom.

A young man who is unable to commit a folly is already an old man.

Cowardice is not synonymous with prudence. It often happens that the better part of discretion is valor.

Passion is a young man's game. Young people can be passionate. Older people gotta be more wise. I mean, you're around awhile, you leave certain things to the young. Don't try to act like you're young. You could really hurt yourself.

Modest wisdom plucks me from over-credulous haste.

Young men, in the conduct and manage of actions, embrace more than they can hold; stir more than they can quiet; fly to the end, without consideration of the means and degrees; pursue some few principles, which they have chanced upon absurdly; care not to innovate, which draws unknown inconveniences; use extreme remedies at first; and, that which doubleth all errors, will not acknowledge or retract them; like an unready horse, that will neither stop nor turn.