Sydney Smith: Trending quotes

Sydney Smith trending quotes. Read the latest quotes in collection

Sydney Smith: 136 quotes7 likes

“It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little.”

Lecture XIX : On the Conduct of the Understanding, Part II
Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy (1849)

“Dean Swift's rule is as good for women as for men — never to talk above a half minute without pausing, and giving others an opportunity to strike in.”

Sydney Smith

"Parisian Morals and Manners", published in The Edinburgh Review (1843)
Smith might have been thinking of the final words of Swift's "Hints Towards an Essay on Conversation": "It is not a Fault in Company to talk much; but to continue it long, is certainly one; for, if the Majority of those who are got together be naturally silent or cautious, the Conversation will flag, unless it be often renewed by one among them, who can start new Subjects, provided he doth not dwell upon them, but leaveth Room for Answers and Replies".

“Live always in the best company when you read.”

Sydney Smith

Vol. I, ch. 10
Lady Holland's Memoir (1855)

“But now persecution is good, because it exists; every law which originated in ignorance and malice, and gratifies the passions from whence it sprang, we call the wisdom of our ancestors: when such laws are repealed, they will be cruelty and madness; till they are repealed, they are policy and caution.”

Sydney Smith

Peter Plymley's Letters (1808), Letter V

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

Sydney Smith

“Daniel Webster struck me much like a steam-engine in trousers.”

Sydney Smith

Vol. I, ch. 9
Lady Holland's Memoir (1855)

“We cultivate literature on a little oatmeal.”