After Chesterfield’s death in 1773, extracts of his will were published in The Gentleman’s Magazine. While the wealthy nobleman provided for his grandsons, he left nothing to his son’s widow, Eugenia Stanhope. Distraught over an uncertain future, Mrs. Stanhope realized she had only one thing of value: a chest full of letters her husband had received from his famous father. She approached a respected London publisher, James Dodsley, and showed him her cache. In 1774, a year after Chesterfield’s death, Dodsley’s firm published Letters to His Son: On the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman. Once again, Lord Chesterfield was the talk of the town, as Londoners of every social class eagerly discussed the contents of a lengthy series of letters that were never intended for public consumption.
While London’s literary society admired the elegant way in which Chesterfield expressed himself, most Londoners were captivated by the racier advice, which included a recommendation that the son have affairs with upper-class English married women in order to improve his manners as well as his social standing. Dr. Samuel Johnson, long a Chesterfield critic, famously wrote that the letters “teach the morals of a whore and the manners of a dancing-master.”
Despite Dr. Johnson’s dim view, many of Chesterfield’s rules of conduct and observations about life now enjoy an exalted status among word and language lovers. You’ll find other contributions from Lord Chesterfield in other chapters, but perhaps his most famous words appeared in a 1749 letter:
Know the true value of time;
snatch, seize, and enjoy every moment of it.
No Idleness; no laziness; no procrastination;
never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.
Chesterfield returned to the same theme in a 1754 letter:
Be alert and diligent in your little concerns;
never procrastinate,
never put off till tomorrow what you can do today;
and never do two things at a time.
Warnings about delaying today’s tasks until tomorrow had appeared centuries before Chesterfield wrote his letters. The basic idea showed up in one of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, written in the late fourteenth century. By 1616, something very close to the modern version (“Deferre not untill to morrow, if thou canst do it to day”) was included in Adages, a collection of proverbial sayings by the English writer Thomas Draxe. By the eighteenth century the basic notion was so well established that a 1757 issue of Poor Richard’s Almanack advised, “Never leave that till to-morrow which you can do to-day.” To my knowledge, though, Lord Chesterfield was the first person to begin the admonition with the phrase never put off till tomorrow. His more compelling—and modern-sounding—version of the saying is the one that finally took hold and ultimately became the preferred way to express the thought. It is now regarded as a quotation classic.
The dictionary defines classic as “Belonging to the highest rank or class.” Just as there are classic cars, films, songs, and books, there are classic quotations—and Lord Chesterfield’s creation deserves the appellation. One of the best ways to determine if a quotation has achieved such a status is to examine the number of parodies and spin-offs it has inspired. On this criterion, Chesterfield’s line has few rivals. So far, I’ve identified more than three dozen attempts to piggyback on the original thought. Here are a few of my favorites:
Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow.HUMPHREY BOGART, as Charlie Allnut, in The African Queen (1951), adapted from the C. S. Forester novel; screenplay by James Agee
There is a maxim, “Never put off till to-morrow what you can do to-day.”
This is a maxim for sluggards. A better reading of it is,
“Never do to-day what you can as well do to-morrow;”
because something may occur to make you regret your premature action.AARON BURR, quoted in James Parton’s
Life and Times of Aaron Burr (1858)
Never put off till tomorrow the fun you can have today.ALDOUS HUXLEY, from the character Lenina in Brave New World (1932)
Never put off till tomorrow
what may be done day after tomorrow just as well.MARK TWAIN, handwritten in an autographed card, December 1881
(and yes, in his note, a “the” is missing before the word “day”)
While Lord Chesterfield’s legendary piece of advice to his son is only a couple of hundred years old, some other classic neverisms go back to ancient times:
Never promise more than you can perform.PUBLILIUS SYRUS, in his Maxims (1st century B.C.)
This saying has a distinctly modern feel, though written more than two thousand years ago. Originally brought to Rome as the infant child of a Syrian slave couple, Publilius Syrus was a highly precocious boy who so impressed his Roman master that he was provided with a nobleman’s education and later freed. As a young man, he came out of nowhere to defeat the greatest orator of his time, Decimus Laberius, in an oratory contest. At the time, such contests were immensely popular, and the surprise victory made Syrus an overnight celebrity. He ultimately became one of the world’s most celebrated orators, but all that remains of his work are several hundred moral maxims, including such immortal lines as “A rolling stone gathers no moss” and “It is a bad plan that admits of no modification.” Syrus also gave the world one other classic neverism:
Never find your delight in another’s misfortune.
While many classic neverisms have ancient roots, others are surprisingly recent:
Never let ’em see you sweat.
This admonition to keep cool during challenging times first appeared in 1985 as the tagline of an advertising campaign for Gillette’s Dry Idea deodorant. The slogan was the brainchild of Phil Slott, the executive vice president of BBDO, the agency behind the campaign. Slott was a major player in the ad world at the time, the creator of such slogans as TWA’s “Up, Up, and Away” and the U.S. Navy’s “It’s Not Just a Job, It’s an Adventure.” When he began working on the campaign, Slott aimed for a theme that embodied his philosophy of advertising, which he expressed this way: “Saying what you won’t get is more compelling than saying what you will get.” Applying this to a deodorant campaign, he said:
When it comes to deodorants, saying “Never let ’em see you sweat,”
was more compelling than saying “You’ll always be dry.”
When the Dry Idea commercials began airing in 1985, they featured four American celebrities: fashion designer Donna Karan, model/actress Lauren Hutton, comedian Elaine Boosler, and Dan Reeves, the head coach of the Denver Broncos. In each commercial, the format was the same. The celebrities all began by saying that there were three “nevers” in their professions. Then, after mentioning the first two, they transitioned to the third one: “Never let ’em see you sweat.” The commercials were well-scripted, well-produced, and surprisingly well-acted. I think you will enjoy seeing the essential elements of all four commercials below:Well, there are three nevers in comedy. Never follow a better comedian.Never give a heckler the last word.And, no matter how bad a joke bombs,though it’s never happened to me personally, never let ’em see you sweat.ELAINE BOOSLER