Quotes from Izaak Walton

Let us be thankful for health and competence, and, above all, for a quiet conscience.

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

We see but the outside of a rich man's happiness; few consider him to be like the silkworm, that, when she seems to play, is at the very same time consuming herself.

Blessings upon all that hate contention, and love quietnesse, and vertue, and Angling.

I love any discourse of rivers, and fish and fishing.

He that loses his conscience has nothing left that is worth keeping.

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

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

Health is ... a blessing that money cannot buy.

Good company in a journey makes the way to seem the shorter.

Rivers and the inhabitants of the watery element were made for wise men to contemplate, and fools to pass by without consideration.

These poor rich men, we anglers pity them perfectly.

No man can lose what he never had.

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

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

This dish of meat is too good for any but anglers, or very honest men.

It was wisely said, by a man of great observation, that there are as many miseries beyond riches as on this side of them.

Lord, what music hast thou provided for Thy saints in heaven, when Thou affordest bad men such music on earth!

O, sir, doubt not that Angling is an art; is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly?

Those little nimble musicians of the air, that warble forth their curious ditties, with which nature hath furnished them to the shame of art.

That which is everybody's business is nobody's business.

There are offences given and offences not given but taken.

No man can lose what he never had.

I am, Sir, a brother of the Angle.