One core part of C++'s philosophy where it's very consistent is that you only pay for what you use and the performance guarantees (e.g., STL) are explicit.

Another consistent part of C++ is that it gives you absolute control over memory, both allocation and layout. It's really this control that makes C++ unbeatable in performance. The good VMs can JIT their languages to match CPU performance on small routines, but they can't match C++ when it comes to manipulating big, complicated data structures.