Sydney Smith Quotes


"A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves obscure men whose timidity prevented them from making a first effort."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Men, Talent, Courage, Day, Effort, First, Timidity, Want, World)

"Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Courage, Being, Calamity, Order)

"I look upon Switzerland as an inferior sort of Scotland."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Scotland)

"I have, alas, only one illusion left, and that is the Archbishop of Canterbury."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Illusion)

"Heaven never helps the men who will not act."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Men, Act, Heaven, Will)

"I never read a book before previewing it; it prejudices a man so."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Man)

"Find fault when you must find fault in private, and if possible sometime after the offense, rather than at the time."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Time, Fault)

"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."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Beauty, Profession, World)

"Correspondences are like small clothes before the invention of suspenders; it is impossible to keep them up."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Clothes, Invention)

"Bishop Berkeley destroyed this world in one volume octavo; and nothing remained, after his time, but mind; which experienced a similar fate from the hand of Mr. Hume in 1737."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Time, Fate, Mind, Nothing, World)

"Among the smaller duties of life I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising where praise is not due."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Life, Praise)

"A comfortable house is a great source of happiness. It ranks immediately after health and a good conscience."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Health, Happiness, Conscience)

"It is safest to be moderately base - to be flexible in shame, and to be always ready for what is generous, good, and just, when anything is to be gained by virtue."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Virtue, Shame)

"Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Men, Time, People)

"As the French say, there are three sexes - men, women, and clergymen."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Men, Women, Sexes)

"Poverty us no disgrace to a man, but it is confoundedly inconvenient."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Disgrace, Man, Poverty)

"Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Nature, Talent, Succeed, Will)

"What you don't know would make a great book."
- Sydney Smith
"What would life be without arithmetic, but a scene of horrors?"
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Life, Arithmetic)

"What a pity it is that we have no amusements in England but vice and religion!"
- Sydney Smith
(Related: England, Pity, Vice)

"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."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Danger, Thinking, World, Worth)

"To business that we love we rise bedtime, and go to't with delight."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Business, Love, Delight)

"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."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Performance, Fact, Illusion, Infinite, Possibilities)

"The object of preaching is to constantly remind mankind of what they keep forgetting; not to supply the intellect, but to fortify the feebleness of human resolutions."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Intellect, Mankind, Preaching)

"It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little - do what you can."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Mistakes, Nothing)

"Science is his forte, and omniscience his foible."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Science)

"No man can ever end with being superior who will not begin with being inferior."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Being, End, Man, Will)

"Madam, I have been looking for a person who disliked gravy all my life; let us swear eternal friendship."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Friendship, Life)

"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."
- Sydney Smith
"Let the Dean and Canons lay their heads together and the thing will be done."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Will)

"Solitude cherishes great virtues and destroys little ones."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Solitude)

"Live always in the best company when you read."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Company)

"Never talk for half a minute without pausing and giving others a chance to join in."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Chance, Giving, Talk)

"Manners are like the shadows of virtues, they are the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow creatures love and respect."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Love, Manners, Respect, Shadows)

"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."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Marriage)

"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."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Truth, Alliance, Errors)

"Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Habit, Melancholy, Will)

"Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence."
- Sydney Smith
(Related: Happiness, Life, Love, Existence)