01c. 1807 ADMarried couples resemble a pair of scissors, often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing any one who comes between them.Sydney Smith / quote ↗
02c. 1807 ADNever talk half a minute without pausing and giving others an opportunity to strike in.Sydney Smith / quote ↗
03c. 1807 ADPatience of obscurity is a duty which we owe not more to our happiness than to the quiet of the world at large.Sydney Smith / quote ↗
05c. 1807 ADThe Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a tempest.Sydney Smith / quote ↗
06c. 1807 ADThe good of other times let others state; / I think it lucky I was born so late.Sydney Smith / quote ↗
07c. 1807 ADThe object of preaching is constantly to remind mankind of what mankind are constantly forgetting; not to supply the defects of human intelligence, but to fortify the feebleness of human resolutions.Sydney Smith / quote ↗
08c. 1807 ADThe real object of education is to give children resources that will endure as long as life endures; habits that time will ameliorate, not destroy; occupation that will render sickness tolerable, solitude pleasant, age venerable, life more dignified and useful, and death less terrible.Sydney Smith / quote ↗
09c. 1807 ADThe wit of language is so miserably inferior to the wit of ideas that it is deservedly driven out of good company.Sydney Smith / quote ↗
12c. 1807 ADYes, you find people ready enough to do the good Samaritan without the oil and twopence.Sydney Smith / quote ↗
13c. 1807 ADNo man can end with being superior, who will not begin with being inferior.Sydney Smith / quote ↗
15c. 1807 ADIt is the calling of great men, not so much to preach new truths, as to rescue from oblivion those old truths which it is our wisdom to remember and our weakness to forget.Sydney Smith / quote ↗
16c. 1807 ADI verily believe that, if the knife were put into my hand, I should not have strength and energy enough to stick it into a Dissenter.Sydney Smith / quote ↗
17c. 1807 ADA man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is in him.Sydney Smith / quote ↗
18c. 1807 ADThe Toucan has an enormous bill, makes a noise like a puppy dog, and lays his eggs in hollow trees. How astonishing are the freaks and fancies of nature! To what purpose, we say, is a bird placed in the woods of Cayenne with a bill a yard long, making a noise like a puppy dog, and laying eggs in hollow trees? The Toucans, to be sure, might retort, to what purpose were gentlemen in Bond Street created? To what purpose were certain foolish prating Members of Parliament created?—pestering the House of Commons with their ignorance and folly, and impeding the business of the country? There is no end of such questions. So we will not enter into the metaphysics of the Toucan.Sydney Smith / quote ↗
19c. 1807 ADAll affectation proceeds from the supposition of possessing something better than the rest of the world possesses. Nobody is vain of possessing two legs and two arms, because that is the precise quantity of either sort of limb which everybody possesses.Sydney Smith / quote ↗
20c. 1807 ADI give up fly-fishing; it is a light, volatile, dissipated pursuit. But ground-bait with a good steady float that never bobs without a bite is an occupation for a bishop, and in no way interferes with sermon-making.Sydney Smith / quote ↗
21c. 1807 ADChildren are excellent physiognomists and soon discover their real friends. Luttrell calls them all lunatics, and so in fact they are. What is childhood but a series of happy delusions?Sydney Smith / quote ↗
22c. 1807 ADEducation gives fecundity of thought, copiousness of illustration, quickness, vigor, fancy, words, images, and illustrations; it decorates every common thing, and gives the power of trifling without being undignified and absurd.Sydney Smith / quote ↗
23c. 1807 ADYou pity a man who is lame or blind, but you never pity him for being a fool, which is often a much greater misfortune.Sydney Smith / quote ↗
24c. 1807 ADWhy destroy present happiness by a distant misery, which may never come at all, or you may never live to see it? for every substantial grief has twenty shadows, and most of them shadows of your own making.Sydney Smith / quote ↗
