Sydney Smith Quotes

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

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.

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.

The thing about performance, even if it's only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.

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

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

To love and be loved is the greatest happiness of existence

I always fear that creation will expire before teatime.

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

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

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

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.

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

Live always in the best company when you read.

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

My living in Yorkshire was so far out of the way, that it was eleven miles away from a lemon

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

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

I never read a book before reviewing it - it prejudices a man so

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.

Politeness is good nature regulated by good sense.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Solitude cherishes great virtues and destroys little ones.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

That sign of old age, extolling the past at the expense of the present