Sydney Smith Quotes
Most popular Sydney Smith Quotes
Praise is the best diet for us, after all.
Politeness is good nature regulated by good sense.
The end of all knowledge should be in virtuous action.
The best way to answer a bad argument is to let it go on.
There are few who would not rather be hated than laughed at.
For it is noble to seek truth, and it is beautiful to find it.
I never read a book before reviewing it. It prejudices a man so.
I have no relish for the country; it is a kind of healthy grave.
Poverty is no disgrace to a man, but it is confoundedly inconvenient.
That sign of old age, extolling the past at the expense of the present.
We know nothing of tomorrow; our business is to be good and happy today.
Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time.
A great deal of talent is lost in the world for want of a little courage.
Great beings hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time.
Avoid shame, but do not seek glory, — there is nothing so expensive as glory.
The best way of answering a bad argument is not to stop it, but to let it go on.
He had occasional flashes of silence, that made his conversation perfectly delightful.
A man must submit to be slow before he is quick; and insignificant before he is important.
The writer does the most who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from them the least time.
Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love, and to be loved, is the greatest happiness of existence.
Let us see the result of good food in a strong body, and the result of great reading in a full and powerful mind.
Among the smaller duties of life, I hardly know any one more important than that of praising where praise is due.
It is the ancient feeling of the human heart — that knowledge is better than riches; and it is deeply and sacredly true!
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.
The observances of the church concerning feasts and fasts are tolerably well-kept, since the rich keep the feasts and the poor keep the fasts.
The pleasure arising from wit proceeds from our surprise at suddenly discovering two things to be similar, in which we suspected no similarity.
Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they can not be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.
We must despise no sort of talent: they all have their separate duties and uses; all, the happiness of man for their object: they all improve, exalt, and gladden life.
In order to do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand shivering on the bank and thinking of the cold and the danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.
One evil in old age is, that as your time is come, you think that every little illness is the beginning of the end. When a man expects to be arrested, every knock at the door is an alarm.
Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your own line of talent. Be what intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing.
Did you ever hear my definition of marriage? It is, that it resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.
I never read a book before reviewing it; it prejudices a man so.
A great deal of talent is lost to the world for the want of a little courage.
Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.
