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

— Izaak Walton , book The Compleat Angler

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

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Izaak Walton 28

English author and biographer 1593–1683

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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)

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“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

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“Doubt not but angling will prove to be so pleasant that it will prove to be, like virtue, a reward to itself.”

Izaak Walton book The Compleat Angler

Part I, ch. 1. Compare: "Virtue is her own reward", John Dryden, Tyrannic Love, act iii, scene 1; "Virtue is to herself the best reward", Henry More, Cupid's Conflict; "Virtue is its own reward", Matthew Prior, Imitations of Horace, book iii. ode 2; John Gay, Epistle to Methuen; Home, Douglas, act iii, scene 1. "Virtue was sufficient of herself for happiness", Diogenes Laertius, Plato, xlii; "Ipsa quidem virtus sibimet pulcherrima merces" ("Virtue herself is her own fairest reward"), Silius Italicus (25?–99): Punica, lib. xiii. line 663.
The Compleat Angler (1653-1655)