Wear your learning, like your watch, in a private pocket: and do not pull it out and strike it, merely to show that you have one.

This remark is associated with Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, in the context of his famous letters of advice on manners, conversation, and self-fashioning written to his illegitimate son, Philip Stanhope, during the 1740s–1750s. Chesterfield, a Whig statesman and celebrated man of the world, repeatedly counsels that learning and wit should be displayed with tact rather than paraded. The “watch” image fits the period’s culture of polite sociability: knowledge was valued, but pedantry and ostentatious erudition were social faults. The line encapsulates Chesterfield’s broader program of making education serve ease, grace, and social effectiveness rather than vanity.

Chesterfield advises that learning should be possessed securely and used when it is useful, not exhibited for applause. Like a watch kept in a pocket, knowledge is meant to guide one’s conduct and judgment quietly; pulling it out merely to prove you own it turns learning into a status symbol. The warning targets pedantry—talking to be seen as clever rather than to communicate or illuminate. Implicitly, the quote distinguishes genuine cultivation (which shows itself naturally in clarity, taste, and good sense) from performative display. It also reflects an Enlightenment ideal of sociable reason: intellect should improve conversation and character, not dominate others.