Sydney Smith > Quotes

“No furniture is so charming as books.”
― Sydney Smith , A Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith; 2 volume set

“Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea! How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.”
― Sydney Smith, A Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith; 2 volume set

“If you want to improve your understanding, drink coffee.”
― Sydney Smith

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

“I never read a book before reviewing it: it prejudices a man so.”
― Sydney  Smith, Bon-mots of Sydney Smith and R. Brinsley Sheridan 1893 [Leather Bound]

“The main question to a novel is -- did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not -- story, language, love, scandal itself cannot save it. It is only meant to please; and it must do that or it does nothing.”
― Sydney Smith, The Edinburgh review: or Critical journal

“The fact is that in order to do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand shivering on the bank thinking of the cold and the danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.”
― Sydney Smith, Dictionary Of Burning Words Of Brilliant Writers: A Cyclopaedia Of Quotations, From The Literature Of All Ages

“we know nothing of tomorrow, our business is to be good and happy today”
― Sydney Smith

“When you rise in the morning, form a resolution to make the day a happy one for a fellow creature.”
― Sydney Smith

“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.”
― Sydney Smith, A Memoir of the Rev. Sydney Smith; 2 volume set

“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”
― Sydney Smith

“I always fear that creation will expire before teatime.”
― Sydney Smith, The sayings of Sydney Smith

“Partial Quote;

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

Full Quote;

“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

“No furniture is so charming as books, even if you never open them or read a single word.”
― 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

“Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love, and to be loved, is the greatest happiness of existence. ”
― Sydney Smith

“It is the greatest of all mistakes, to do nothing because you can only do little...”
― Sydney Smith, Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy

“If I were to begin life again, I would devote it to music. It is the only cheap and unpunished rapture upon earth. ”
― Sydney Smith

“I never read a book before reviewing it; it prejudices a man so.”
― Sydney Smith

“Mankind are always happy for having happiness. So if you make them happy now, you make them happy twenty years from now by the memory of it. ”
― Sydney Smith

“Never give way to melancholy: nothing encroaches more; I fight against it vigorously. One great remedy is, to take short views of life. Are you happy now? Are you likely to remain so till this evening? or next week? or next year? Then why 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

“I am glad you like what I said of Mrs. Elizabeth Fry (prison and mental hospital reformer). She is very unpopular with the clergy; examples of living, active virtue disturb our repose and give one to distressing comparisons; we long to burn her alive.”
― Sydney Smith

“Take short views,
Hope for the best,
and Trust in God.”
― Sydney Smith

“Live always in the best company when you read.”
― Sydney Smith

“Human beings cling to their delicious tyrannies and to their exquisite nonsense, till death stares them in the face.”
― 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

“Manners are the shadows of virtues; the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow-creatures love and respect. If we strive to become, then, what we strive to appear, manners may often be rendered useful guides to the performance of our duties.”
― Sydney Smith

“Jika anda membuat seseorang bahagia hari ini,
Anda juga membuat dia berbahagia dua puluh tahun lagi, saat ia mengenang peristiwa itu.”
― Sydney Smith

“A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage”
― Sydney Smith

“What you don’t know would make a great book.”
― Sydney Smith