Izaak Walton Quotes

Angling is somewhat like poetry, men are to be born so: I mean, with inclinations to it, though both may be heightened by discourse and practice

It [angling] deserves commendations;… it is an art worthy the knowledge and practice of a wise man.

I am, sir, a Brother of the Angle.

As the Italians say, Good company in a journey makes the way to seem the shorter.

I shall stay him no longer than to wish him a rainy evening to read this following discourse; and that if he be an honest angler, the east wind may never blow when he goes a-fishing.

As no man is born an artist, so no man is born an angler.

Angling may be said to be so like the mathematics that it can never be fully learnt.

Of which, if thou be a severe, sour-complexioned man, then I here disallow thee to be a competent judge.

I have laid aside business, and gone a-fishing.

God has two dwellings — one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart.

The great secretary of Nature and all learning, Sir Francis Bacon.

For love is a flattering mischief, that hath denied aged and wise men a foresight of those evils that too often prove to be the children of that blind father; a passion, that carries us to commit errors with as much ease as whirlwinds move feathers, and begets in us an unwearied industry to the attainment of what we desire.

But God, who is able to prevail, wrestled with him, as the Angel did with Jacob, and marked him; marked him for his own; marked him with a blessing, a blessing of obedience to the motions of his blessed Spirit.