Sydney Smith Quotes

But now persecution is good, because it exists; every law which originated in ignorance and malice, and gratifies the passions from whence it sprang, we call the wisdom of our ancestors: when such laws are repealed, they will be cruelty and madness; till they are repealed, they are policy and caution.

"Heat, ma'am!" I said; "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."

I have no relish for the country; it is a kind of healthy grave.

The fact is that in order to do any thing 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.

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.

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

I am old, but I certainly have not that sign of old age, extolling the past at the expense of the present.

[He] has not body enough to cover his mind decently with; his intellect is improperly exposed.

What you don’t know would make a great book.

Did you ever hear my definition of marriage? It is, that it resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they can not be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.

It is the greatest of all mistakes, to do nothing because you can only do little...

How can a bishop marry? How can he flirt? The most he can say is, "I will see you in the vestry after service."

Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl
And, scarce suspected, animate the whole.

To take Macaulay out of literature and society and put him in the House of Commons, is like taking the chief physician out of London during a pestilence.

The truth is, that most men want knowledge, not for itself, but for the superiority which knowledge confers; and the means they employ to secure this superiority, are as wrong as the ultimate object, for no man can ever end with being superior, who will not begin with being inferior.