Logan Pearsall Smith
Logan Pearsall Smith
Logan Pearsall Smithwas an American-born British essayist and critic. Harvard and Oxford educated, he was known for his aphorisms and epigrams, and was an expert on 17th Century divines. His Words and Idioms made him an authority on correct English language usage. He wrote his autobiography, Unforgotten Years, for which he may be best remembered...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth18 October 1865
CountryUnited States of America
Logan Pearsall Smith quotes about
world reputation unkind
The world is not unkind, and reprobates are worse than their reputations.
fashion slave
He who goes against the fashion is himself its slave
artist devil making-money
The notion of making money by popular work, and then retiring to do good work, is the most familiar of all the devil's traps for artists.
doors perfect perfection
A friend who loved perfection would be the perfect friend, did not that love shut his door on me.
razors sides meaning-of-life
Those who talk on the razor-edge of double-meanings pluck the rarest blooms from the precipice on either side.
inspirational ifs
If it's to be, it's up to me.
equality odd-things universe
It's an odd thing about this universe that, though we all disagree with each other, we are all of us always in the right.
talent mediocre best-sellers
A best-seller is the gilded tomb of a mediocre talent
sorrow income
There are few sorrows in which a good income is of no avail.
hypocrite hypocrisy house
All reformers, however strict their social conscience, live in houses just as big as they can pay for.
play joy rich
Eat with the rich, but go to the play with the poor, who are capable of joy.
mean thinking done
When we say we are certain so-and-so can't possibly have done it, what we mean is that we think he very likely did.
dying dread happenings
It is the dread of something happening, something unknown and dreadful, that makes us do anything to keep the flicker of talk from dying out.
wind forever soul
What shall I compare it to, this fantastic thing I call my Mind? To a waste-paper basket, to a sieve choked with sediment, or to a barrel full of floating froth and refuse? No, what it is really most like is a spider's web, insecurely hung on leaves and twigs, quivering in every wind, and sprinkled with dewdrops and dead flies. And at its centre, pondering forever the Problem of Existence, sits motionless the spider-like and uncanny Soul.