Famous Sydney Smith Quotes

A comfortable house is a great source of happiness. It ranks immediately after health and a good conscience.
-- Sydney Smith

A good marriage is at least 80 percent good luck in finding the right person at the right time. The rest is trust.
-- Sydney Smith

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.
-- Sydney Smith

A wise man struggling with adversity is said by some heathen writer to be a spectacle on which the gods might look down with pleasure.
-- Sydney Smith

Correspondences are like small clothes before the invention of suspenders; it is impossible to keep them up.
-- Sydney Smith

Feast of Vincent de Paul, Founder of the Congregation of the Mission (Lazarists), 1660 The greatest curse which can be entailed upon mankind is a state of war. All the atrocious crimes committed in years of peace -- all that is spent in peace by the secret corruptions or by the thoughtless extravagances of nations -- are mere trifles compared with the gigantic evils which stalk over the world in a state of war. God is forgotten in war -- every principle of Christian charity is trampled upon.
-- Sydney Smith

Find fault when you must find fault in private, and if possible sometime after the offense, rather than at the time.
-- Sydney Smith

Good friends are good for your health.
-- Sydney Smith

Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.
-- Sydney Smith

He had occasional flashes of silence that made his conversation perfectly delightful.
-- Sydney Smith

He not only overflowed with learning, but stood in the slop.
-- Sydney Smith

I do not mean to be disrespectful, but the attempt of the Lords to stop the progress of reform, reminds me very forcibly of the great storm of Sidmouth, and of the conduct of the excellent Mrs. Partington on that occasion. In the winter of 1824, there set in a great flood upon that town--the tide rose to an incredible height: the waves rushed in upon the houses, and everything was threatened with destruction. In the midst of this sublime and terrible storm, Dame Partington, who lived upon the beach, was seen at the door of her house with mop and pattens, trundling her mop, squeezing out the sea water, and vigorously pushing away the Atlantic Ocean. The Atlantic was roused. Mrs. Partington's spirit was up; but I need not tell you that the contest was unequal. The Atlantic Ocean beat Mrs. Partington. She was excellent at a slop or a puddle, but she should not have meddled with a tempest.
-- Sydney Smith

It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him.
-- Sydney Smith

It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding.
-- Sydney Smith

Learn from the earliest days to insure your principles against the perils of ridicule; you can no more exercise your reason if you live in the constant dread of laughter, that you can enjoy your life if you are in the constant terror of death.
-- Sydney Smith

Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and be loved is the greatest happiness of existence. Thanks to Stace -Sydney Smith.
-- Sydney Smith

Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.
-- Sydney Smith

Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing any one who comes between them.
-- Sydney Smith

My living in Yorkshire was so far out of the way, that it was actually twelve miles from a lemon.
-- Sydney Smith

Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goals.
-- Sydney Smith