Sydney Smith quotes: wise famous quotes, sayings and quotations by Sydney Smith

Sydney Smith Famous Quotes & Sayings

Discover top inspirational quotes from Sydney Smith on Wise Famous Quotes.

Human beings cling to their delicious tyrannies and to their exquisite nonsense, till death stares them in the face.

Madam, I have been looking for a person who disliked gravy all my life; let us swear eternal friendship.

As the French say, there are three sexes - men, women, and clergymen.

Oh, don't tell me of facts, I never believe facts; you know, [George] Canning said nothing was so fallacious as facts, except figures.

Find fault when you must find fault in private, and if possible sometime after the offense, rather than at the time.

How can a bishop marry? How can he flirt? The most he can say is "I will see you in the vestry after service."

What a pity it is that we have no amusements in England but vice and religion!

Heaven never helps the men who will not act.

Never talk for half a minute without pausing and giving others a chance to join in.

Many in this world run after felicity like an absent man hunting for his hat, while all the time it is on his head or in his hand.

Avoid shame, but do not seek glory; nothing so expensive as glory.

No man can ever end with being superior who will not begin with being inferior.

It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little - do what you can.

Science is his forte, and omniscience his foible.

We know nothing of tomorrow, our business is to be good and happy today

What would life be without arithmetic, but a scene of horrors?

Poverty us no disgrace to a man, but it is confoundedly inconvenient.

Among the smaller duties of life I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising where praise is not due.

Some men have only one book in them, others a library.

No furniture is so charming as books.

When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, the only effect it produces on me is to convince me that he is an unalterable fool

Hope is the belief, more or less strong, that joy will come.

Married couples resemble
a pair of scissors,
often moving in opposite directions, yet punishing anyone who gets in between them

Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time.

Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was not reasoned into him, and cannot be reasoned out.

The dearest things in the world
are our neighbor's eyes;
they cost everybody more
than anything else in housekeeping.

I have, alas, only one illusion left, and that is the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Manners are like the shadows of virtues, they are the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow creatures love and respect.

Correspondences are like small clothes before the invention of suspenders; it is impossible to keep them up.

Live always in the best company when you read.

Mankind are always happy for having happiness. So if you make them happy now, you make them happy twenty years from now by the memory of it.

What two ideas are more inseparable than beer and Britannia?

Politeness is good nature regulated by good sense.

The two women exchanged the type of glance women use when there is no knife handy.

He not only overflowed with learning, but stood in the slop.

What you don't know would make a great book.

Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea! How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.

In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style.

A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage

When you rise in the morning, form a resolution to make the day a happy one for a fellow creature.

If I were to begin life again, I would devote it to music. It is the only cheap and unpunished rapture upon earth.

Take short views, hope for the best and trust in God.

A life of knowledge is not often a life of injury and crime.

Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed.

To business that we love we rise bedtime, and go to't with delight.

Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.

All musical people seem to be happy.
It is the engrossing pursuit, -
almost the only innocent and
unpunished passion.

Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach.

Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love, and to be loved, is the greatest happiness of existence.

Solitude cherishes great virtues and destroys little ones.

Let the Dean and Canons lay their heads together and the thing will be done.

I never read a book before reviewing it; it prejudices a man so.

Heat, ma am! It was so dreadful here that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones.

You will find people ready enough to do the Samaritan without the oil and twopence.

I look upon Switzerland as an inferior sort of Scotland.

Scotland: That garret of the earth - that knuckle-end of England - that land of Calvin, oatcakes, and sulfur.

A man who wishes to make his way in life could do no better than go through the world with a boiling tea-kettle in his hand.

A comfortable house is a great source of happiness. It ranks immediately after health and a good conscience.

I never read a book before previewing it; it prejudices a man so.

I always fear that creation will expire before teatime.

If you want to improve your understanding, drink coffee.