About Sydney Smith: Sydney Smith was an English wit, writer and Anglican cleric.
I look upon Switzerland as an inferior sort of Scotland.
When you rise in the morning, form a resolution to make the day a happy one for a fellow creature.
Do not try to push your way through to the front ranks of your profession; do not run after distinctions and rewards; but do your utmost to find an entry into the world of beauty.
To business that we love we rise bedtime, and go to't with delight.
A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves obscure men whose timidity prevented them from making a first effort.
Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.
Never talk for half a minute without pausing and giving others a chance to join in.
Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.
Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time.
Solitude cherishes great virtues and destroys little ones.
What you don't know would make a great book.
Errors, to be dangerous, must have a great deal of truth mingled with them. It is only from this alliance that they can ever obtain an extensive circulation.
A comfortable house is a great source of happiness. It ranks immediately after health and a good conscience.
It is safest to be moderately base - to be flexible in shame, and to be always ready for what is generous, good, and just, when anything is to be gained by virtue.
Madam, I have been looking for a person who disliked gravy all my life; let us swear eternal friendship.
Among the smaller duties of life I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising where praise is not due.
What would life be without arithmetic, but a scene of horrors?
Find fault when you must find fault in private, and if possible sometime after the offense, rather than at the time.
Bishop Berkeley destroyed this world in one volume octavo; and nothing remained, after his time, but mind; which experienced a similar fate from the hand of Mr. Hume in 1737.
Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed.
What a pity it is that we have no amusements in England but vice and religion!
