1771-1845, British Writer, Clergyman
It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can do only a little. Do what you can.
Sydney Smith – [Perseverance]
It resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated, often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.
Sydney Smith – [Marriage]
Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.
Sydney Smith – [Friends and Friendship]
Live always in the best company when you read.
Sydney Smith – [Books and Reading]
Madam, I have been looking for a person who disliked gravy all my life; let us swear eternal friendship.
Sydney Smith – [Compatibility]
Manners are like the shadows of virtues, they are the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow creatures love and respect.
Sydney Smith – [Manners]
Married couples resemble a pair of scissors, often moving in opposite directions, yet punishing anyone who gets in between them.
Sydney Smith – [Marriage]
Never talk for half a minute without pausing and giving others a chance to join in.
Sydney Smith – [Conversation]
Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was not reasoned into him, and cannot be reasoned out.
Sydney Smith – [Reason]
No furniture is so charming as books.
Sydney Smith – [Books and Reading]
No man can ever end with being superior who will not begin with being inferior.
Sydney Smith – [Power]
Oh, don't tell me of facts — I never believe facts: you know Canning said nothing was so fallacious as facts, except figures.
Sydney Smith – [Facts]
Poverty is no disgrace to a man, but it is confoundedly inconvenient.
Sydney Smith – [Poverty and The Poor]
Solitude cherishes great virtues and destroys little ones.
Sydney Smith – [Solitude]
The greatest of all mistakes is to do nothing because you can only do a little. Do what you can.
Sydney Smith – [Action]
The object of preaching is to constantly remind mankind of what they keep forgetting; not to supply the intellect, but to fortify the feebleness of human resolutions.
Sydney Smith – [Preachers and Preaching]
The writer does the most good who gives his reader the most knowledge and takes from him the least time.
Sydney Smith – [Writers and Writing]
To love and be loved is the great happiness of existence.
Sydney Smith – [Love]
What would life be without arithmetic, but a scene of horrors?
Sydney Smith – [Mathematics]
Whatever you are from nature, keep to it; never desert your own line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing.
Sydney Smith – [Self-love]
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