Sydney Smith (1771 – 1845)
English clergyman, critic, philosopher and wit.
Serenely full, the epicure would say,
Fate cannot harm me, I have dined today.
As the French say, there are three sexes, — men, women, and clergymen.
Magnificent spectacle of human happiness.
Looked as if she had walked straight out of the ark.
Take short views, hope for the best, and trust in God.
It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding.
The schoolboy whips his taxed top; the beardless youth manages his taxed horse with a taxed bridle on a taxed road; and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid seven per cent, into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent, flings himself back upon his chintz bed which has paid twenty-two per cent, and expires in the arms of an apothecary who has paid a license of a hundred pounds for the privilege of putting him to death.
In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book? Or goes to an American play? or looks at an American picture or statue? What does the world yet owe to American physicians or surgeons? What new substances have their chemists discovered? Or what old ones have they advanced? What new constellations have been discovered by the telescopes of Americans? Who drinks out of American glasses? Or eats from American plates? Or wears American coats or gowns? or sleeps in American blankets? Finally, under which of the old tyrannical governments of Europe is every sixth man a slave, whom his fellow-creatures may buy and sell and torture?
My living in Yorkshire was so far out of the way, that it was actually twelve miles from a lemon.
It is the 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.
No man can ever end with being superior, who will not begin with being inferior.
A great deal of talent is lost to the world for the want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves a number of obscure men who have only remained obscure because their timidity has prevented them from making a first effort.
Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea?—how did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.
Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love, and to be loved, is the greatest happiness of existence.
Among the smaller duties of life I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising where praise is not due.
He was a one-book man. Some men have only one book in them; others, a library.
Not body enough to cover his mind decently with; his intellect is improperly exposed.
Praise is the best diet for us, after all.
Madam, I have been looking for a person who disliked gravy all my life; let us swear eternal friendship.
Correspondences are like small clothes before the invention of suspenders; it is impossible to keep them up.