Sydney Smith Quotes

Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love, and to be loved, is the greatest happiness of existence.

Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.

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

I never read a book before reviewing it; it prejudices a man so.

Take short views,
Hope for the best,
and Trust in God.

I am glad you like what I said of Mrs. Elizabeth Fry (prison and mental hospital reformer). She is very unpopular with the clergy; examples of living, active virtue disturb our repose and give one to distressing comparisons; we long to burn her alive.

Never give way to melancholy: nothing encroaches more; I fight against it vigorously. One great remedy is, to take short views of life. Are you happy now? Are you likely to remain so till this evening? or next week? or next year? Then why destroy present happiness by a distant misery, which may never come at all, or you may never live to see it? For every substantial grief has twenty shadows, and most of them shadows of your own making.

Mankind are always happy for having happiness. So if you make them happy now, you make them happy twenty years from now by the memory of it.

Human beings cling to their delicious tyrannies and to their exquisite nonsense, till death stares them in the face.

Live always in the best company when you read.

Many in this world run after felicity like an absent man hunting for his hat, while all the time it is on his head or in his hand.

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

A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage

Jika anda membuat seseorang bahagia hari ini,
Anda juga membuat dia berbahagia dua puluh tahun lagi, saat ia mengenang peristiwa itu.

Manners are the shadows of virtues; the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow-creatures love and respect. If we strive to become, then, what we strive to appear, manners may often be rendered useful guides to the performance of our duties.