Izaak Walton Quotes (28 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

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The Compleat Angler

Izaak Walton

Izaak Walton: 28 quotes1 like

Famous Izaak Walton Quotes

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

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 1.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

“But God, who is able to prevail, wrestled with him, as the Angel did with Jacob, and marked him; marked him for his own; marked him with a blessing, a blessing of obedience to the motions of his blessed Spirit.”

Izaak Walton

Life of Donne (1640).

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

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Epistle to the Reader.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

“Old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good.”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 4.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

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

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 2.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

“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.”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 8.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

Izaak Walton Quotes about God

“An excellent angler, and now with God.”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 4.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

“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.”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 5. Referring to William Butler, styled by Dr. Fuller in his "Worthies" (Suffolk) the "Æsculapius of our age." He died in 1621. This first appeared in the second edition of "The Angler," 1655. Roger Williams, in his "Key into the Language of America," 1643, p. 98, says: "One of the chiefest doctors of England was wont to say, that God could have made, but God never did make, a better berry".
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

“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.”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 21.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)

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

Izaak Walton

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 579.

Izaak Walton Quotes about men

“Angling is somewhat like poetry, men are to be born so”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 1.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)
Context: Angling is somewhat like poetry, men are to be born so: I mean, with inclinations to it, though both may be heightened by discourse and practice

“For love is a flattering mischief, that hath denied aged and wise men a foresight of those evils that too often prove to be the children of that blind father; a passion, that carries us to commit errors with as much ease as whirlwinds move feathers, and begets in us an unwearied industry to the attainment of what we desire.”

Izaak Walton

Life of Dr. Donne (1640).

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

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 8.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)