Sydney Smith Quotes

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Sydney Smith

Profession : Clergyman

Birth : June 3, 1771

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

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

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

Sydney Smith

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

Sydney Smith

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

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

Sydney Smith

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

Sydney Smith

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

Sydney Smith

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

Live always in the best company when you read.

Sydney Smith

Heaven never helps the men who will not act.

Sydney Smith

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

Sydney Smith

I look upon Switzerland as an inferior sort of Scotland.

Sydney Smith

As the French say, there are three sexes - men, women, and clergymen.

Sydney Smith

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

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

Sydney Smith

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

Sydney Smith

I never read a book before previewing it; it prejudices a man so.

Sydney Smith

What would life be without arithmetic, but a scene of horrors?

Sydney Smith

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