Quotes from Izaak Walton

I love such mirth as does not make friends ashamed to look upon one another next morning.

I remember that a wise friend of mine did usually say, "That which is everybody's business is nobody's business."

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

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

You will find angling to be like the virtue of humility, which has a calmness of spirit and a world of other blessings attending upon it.

Let the blessing of Saint Peter's Master be… upon all that are lovers of virtue, and dare trust in his Providence, and be quiet and go a-angling.

Look to your health; and if you have it, praise God, and value it next to a good conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of; a blessing that money cannot buy.

There are offences given and offences not given but taken.

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

An honest ale-house where we shall find a cleanly room, lavender in the windows, and twenty ballads stuck about the wall.

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

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

Thus use your frog…. Put your hook through his mouth, and out at his gills;… and then with a fine needle and silk sew the upper part of his leg, with only one stitch, to the arming-wire of your hook; or tie the frog's leg, above the upper joint, to the armed-wire; and in so doing use him as though you loved him.

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.

We may say of angling as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries: "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did"; and so, if I might be judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling.

But God, who is able to prevail, wrestled with him, as the Angel did with Jacob, and marked him; marked him for his own.

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

Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.

Look to your health and if you have it, praise God and value it next to conscience for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of, a blessing money can't buy.

Look to your health; and if you have it, praise God and value it next to a good conscience; for health is the second blessing that money cannot buy; therefore value it, and be thankful for it.

So long as thou are ignorant be not ashamed to learn. Ignorance is the greatest of all infirmities, and when justified, the chiefest of all follies.

Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.