Sydney Smith

“No man can ever end with being superior who will not begin with being inferior.”

“Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach.”

“A comfortable house is a great source of happiness. It ranks immediately after health and a good conscience.”

“Manners are like the shadows of virtues, they are the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow creatures love and respect.”

“Bishop Berkeley destroyed this world in one volume octavo; and nothing remained, after his time, but mind; which experienced a similar fate from the hand of Mr. Hume in 1737.”

“Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.”

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

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

“Correspondences are like small clothes before the invention of suspenders; it is impossible to keep them up.”

“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.”

“Solitude cherishes great virtues and destroys little ones.”

“As the French say, there are three sexes - men, women, and clergymen.”

“Let the Dean and Canons lay their heads together and the thing will be done.”

“When you rise in the morning, form a resolution to make the day a happy one for a fellow creature.”

“Poverty is no disgrace to a man, but it is confoundedly inconvenient.”

“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.”

“I have, alas, only one illusion left, and that is the Archbishop of Canterbury.”