Sydney Smith

“אחרי הכול, התשבחות מהוות את מזוננו העיקרי.”

“כמו שהצרפתים אומרים, קיימים שלושה מינים: גברים, נשים וכמרים.”

“The thing about performance, even if it's only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.”

“What a pity it is that we have no amusements in England but vice and religion!”

“Heaven never helps the men who will not act.”

“What would life be without arithmetic, but a scene of horrors?”

“I never read a book before previewing it; it prejudices a man so.”

“Errors, to be dangerous, must have a great deal of truth mingled with them. It is only from this alliance that they can ever obtain an extensive circulation.”

“What you don't know would make a great book.”

“Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.”

“It is safest to be moderately base - to be flexible in shame, and to be always ready for what is generous, good, and just, when anything is to be gained by virtue.”

“I look upon Switzerland as an inferior sort of Scotland.”

“Never talk for half a minute without pausing and giving others a chance to join in.”

“If I were to begin life again, I would devote it to music. It is the only cheap and unpunished rapture upon earth.”

“In composing, as a general rule, run your pen through every other word you have written; you have no idea what vigor it will give your style.”

“Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time.”

“The main question to a novel is -- did it amuse? were you surprised at dinner coming so soon? did you mistake eleven for ten? were you too late to dress? and did you sit up beyond the usual hour? If a novel produces these effects, it is good; if it does not -- story, language, love, scandal itself cannot save it. It is only meant to please; and it must do that or it does nothing.”

“The fact is that in order to do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand shivering on the bank thinking of the cold and the danger, but jump in and scramble through as well as we can.”

“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.”

“Madam, I have been looking for a person who disliked gravy all my life; let us swear eternal friendship.”