Correspondences are like small clothes before the invention of suspenders; it is impossible to keep them up.
Sydney Smith
- More quotations by Clergyman
Sydney Smith quotes
A Curate - there is something which excites compassion in the very name of a Curate!!!
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.
Among the smaller duties of life I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising where praise is not due.
As the French say, there are three sexes - men, women, and clergymen.
Bishop Berkeley destroyed this world in one volume octavo; and nothing remained, after his time, but mind; which experienced a similar fate from the hand of Mr. Hume in 1737.
Correspondences are like small clothes before the invention of suspenders; it is impossible to keep them up.
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.
Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time.
Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.
He had occasional flashes of silence that made his conversation perfectly delightful.
Heaven never helps the men who will not act.
How can a bishop marry? How can he flirt? The most he can say is "I will see you in the vestry after service."
I have, alas, only one illusion left, and that is the Archbishop of Canterbury.
I have seen nobody since I saw you, but persons in orders. My only varieties are vicars, rectors, curates, and even now and then (by way of turbot) and archdeacon.
I never read a book before previewing it; it prejudices a man so.
In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style.
It is safest to be moderately base - to be flexible in shame, and to be always ready for what is generous, good, and just, when anything is to be gained by virtue.
It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little - do what you can.
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.
Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl, And, scarce-suspected, animate the whole.
Let the Dean and Canons lay their heads together and the thing will be done.
Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.
Live always in the best company when you read.
Madam, I have been looking for a person who disliked gravy all my life; let us swear eternal friendship.
Manners are like the shadows of virtues, they are the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow creatures love and respect.
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.
Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach.
Never talk for half a minute without pausing and giving others a chance to join in.
No furniture so charming as books.
No man can ever end with being superior who will not begin with being inferior.
Poverty us no disgrace to a man, but it is confoundedly inconvenient.
Science is his forte, and omniscience his foible.
Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea? - how did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.
The object of preaching is to constantly remind mankind of what they keep forgetting; not to supply the intellect, but to fortify the feebleness of human resolutions.
The thing about performance, even if it's only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.
To business that we love we rise bedtime, and go to't with delight.
We have yet to see the full impact of the open, global marketplace. By 1997 all raw materials and technology will be available everywhere in the world. The only differences between countries and markets will be skill levels, education, and the level of empowerment of the workplace.
What would life be without arithmetic, but a scene of horrors?
What you don't know would make a great book.
Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed.
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