"You had better refuse a favor gracefully, than to grant it clumsily. Manner is all, in everything: it is by manner only that you can please, and consequently rise. All your Greek will never advance you from secretary to envoy, or from envoy to ambassador; but your address, your manner, your air, if good, very probably may."

Philip Stanhope Politics See all quotes by Philip Stanhope →

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More by Philip Stanhope

“I assisted at the birth of that most significant word "flirtation," which dropped from the most beautiful mouth in the world.”

“I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later.”

“Sacrifice to the Graces.”

“Take the tone of the company you are in.”

“There is time enough for everything, in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a time.”

“People will no more advance their civility to a bear, than their money to a bankrupt.”

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