Sydney Smith (1771-1845)

Quotes

• Live always in the best company when you read.

• What would the world do without tea? - how did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.

• He had occasional flashes of silence, that made his conversation perfectly delightful.

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

• There is one piece of advice, in a life of study, which I think no one will object to; and that is, every now and then to be completely idle - to do nothing at all.

• To do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in, and scramble through as well as we can.

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

• It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him.

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

• Learn from the earliest days to insure your principles against the perils of ridicule; you can no more exercise your reason if you live in the constant dread of laughter, than you can enjoy your life if you are in the constant terror of death.

• Whatever you are from nature, keep to it; never desert your own line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else, and you will be ten thousands times worse than nothing.

• I have no relish for the country; it is a kind of healthy grave.

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

• 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.

• Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing any one who comes between them.

• You must not think me necessarily foolish because I am facetious, nor will I consider you necessarily wise because you are grave.