Quotes from Sydney Smith

He has spent all his life in letting down empty buckets into empty wells; and he is frittering away his age in trying to draw them up again.

Marriage 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.

He was a one-book man. Some men have only one book in them; others, a library.

Manners are like the shadows of virtues, they are the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow creatures love and respect.

What a pity it is that we have no amusements in England but vice and religion!

I declare,... a man who wishes to make his way in life could do nothing better than go through the world with a boiling tea-kettle in his hand.

He not only overflowed with learning, but stood in the slop.

In the country I always fear that creation will expire before tea-time.

Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach.

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

Find fault when you must find fault in private, and if possible sometime after the offense, rather than at the time.

He had occasional flashes of silence, that made his conversation perfectly delightful.

He not only overflowed with learning, he stood in the slop.

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.

There is one piece of advice, in a life of study, which I think no one will object to; and that is, every now and then to be completely idle - to do nothing at all.

To do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in, and scramble through as well as we can.

To love and be loved is the great happiness of existence.

What would the world do without tea? - how did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.

Whatever you are from nature, keep to it; never desert your own line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else, and you will be ten thousands times worse than nothing.

You must not think me necessarily foolish because I am facetious, nor will I consider you necessarily wise because you are grave.

No furniture is so charming as books.

Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea! How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.

If you want to improve your understanding, drink coffee.

The main question to a novel is -- did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not -- story, language, love, scandal itself cannot save it. It is only meant to please; and it must do that or it does nothing.