Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith
Sydney Smithwas an English wit, writer and Anglican cleric...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionClergyman
Date of Birth3 June 1771
love respect quality
Manners are like the shadows of virtues, they are the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow creatures love and respect.
beauty running trying
Do not try to push your way through to the front ranks of your profession; do not run after distinctions and rewards; but do your utmost to find an entry into the world of beauty.
scotland looks switzerland
I look upon Switzerland as an inferior sort of Scotland.
giving way melancholy
Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach.
mistake errors alliances
Errors, to be dangerous, must have a great deal of truth mingled with them. It is only from this alliance that they can ever obtain an extensive circulation.
together done dean
Let the Dean and Canons lay their heads together and the thing will be done.
sarcastic
He not only overflowed with learning, but stood in the slop.
hate science ease
[T]he 47th proposition in Euclid might now be voted down with as much ease as any proposition in politics; and therefore if Lord Hawkesbury hates the abstract truths of science as much as he hates concrete truth in human affairs, now is his time for getting rid of the multiplication table, and passing a vote of censure upon the pretensions of the hypotenuse.
sarcastic land earth
Scotland: That garret of the earth - that knuckle-end of England - that land of Calvin, oatcakes, and sulfur.
silence enemy might
His enemies might have said before that he talked rather too much; but now he has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful.
wise strong powerful
It is no more necessary that a man should remember the different dinners and suppers which have made him healthy, than the different books which have made him wise. Let us see the results of good food in a strong body, and the results of great reading in a full and powerful mind.
ignorance ignorant-masses numbers
Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.
summer weather flesh
Heat, ma am! It was so dreadful here that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones.
army politeness good-nature
Politeness is good nature regulated by good sense.