Common sense (which, in truth, is very uncommon) is the best sense I know of: abide by it; it will counsel you best.
Lord ChesterfieldRead
Men, as well as women, are much oftener led by their hearts than by their understandings.
Interpretation
What this quote means
People tend to follow their emotions more than their rational thoughts.
This quote by Lord Chesterfield highlights the tendency of human beings to be driven by their emotions and feelings, rather than pure logic or reason. It suggests that decision-making and behavior are often influenced more strongly by what we feel than what we think, emphasizing the power of the heart in guiding our actions and choices in life.
Themes
EmotionDecision-MakingReasonHeartUnderstanding
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about emotional intelligence, one might quote Chesterfield to emphasize the importance of understanding our emotions.
More from Lord Chesterfield
All quotes βNever seem wiser, nor more learned, than the people you are with. Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not merely pull it out and strike it; merely to show that you have one.
Lord ChesterfieldRead
If you can once engage people's pride, love, pity, ambition on your side, you need not fear what their reason can do against you.
Lord ChesterfieldRead
Merit and knowledge will not gain hearts, though they will secure them when gained.
Lord ChesterfieldRead
Firmness of purpose is one of the best instruments of success.
Lord ChesterfieldRead
Wit is so shining a quality that everybody admires it; most people aim at it, all people fear it, and few love it unless in themselves. A man must have a good share of wit himself to endure a great share of it in another.
Lord ChesterfieldRead
Similar quotes
For men are not equal: thus speaks justice.
Friedrich NietzscheRead
Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that man can get them for himself without grace.
Simone WeilRead
I'm trying to have a moment o' existential dreed here, right? Crivens, it's a puir lookout if a man canna feel the chilly winds o' fate lashing aroound his netheres wi'out folks telling him he's deid, eh?
Terry PratchettRead
There's a phenomenology of being sick, one that depends on temperament, personal history, and the culture which we live in.
Siri HustvedtRead
No taste of food, no feel of water, no sound of wind, no memory of tree or grass or flower, no image of moon or star are left to me. I am naked in the dark, Sam, and there is no veil between me and the wheel of fire. I begin to see it even with my waking eyes, and all else fades.
J. R. R. TolkienRead
Slave camps under the flag of freedom, massacres justified by philanthropy or the taste of the superhuman, cripple judgment. On the day when crime puts on the apparel of innocence, through a curious reversal peculiar to our age, it is innocence that is called on to justify itself. The purpose of this essay is to accept and study that strange challenge.
Albert CamusRead