Sydney Smith Quotes - Page 2

People who love only once in their lives are shallow people. What they call their loyalty, and their fidelity, I call either the lethargy of custom, or their lack of imagination

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

He who drinks a tumbler of London water has literally in his stomach more animated beings than there are men, women, and children on the face of the globe.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Lucy, dear child, mind your arithmetic. You know in the first sum of yours I ever saw there was a mistake. You had carried two (as a cab is licensed to do), and you ought, dear Lucy, to have carried but one. Is this a trifle? What would life be without arithmetic, but a scene of horrors.

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

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

What two ideas are more inseparable than beer and Britannia?

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

I always fear that creation will expire before teatime.

His enemies might have said before that he talked rather too much; but now he has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful.

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

Solitude cherishes great virtues and destroys little ones.

The longer I live, the more I am convinced that the apothecary is of more importance than Seneca; and that half the unhappiness in the world proceeds from little stoppages; from a duct choked up, from food pressing in the wrong place, from a vexed duodenum, or an agitated pylorus.

Errors, to be dangerous, must have a great deal of truth mingled with them. It is only from this alliance that they can ever obtain an extensive circulation.

Do not try to push your way through to the front ranks of your profession; do not run after distinctions and rewards; but do your utmost to find an entry into the world of beauty.