Logan Pearsall Smith
Logan Pearsall Smith
Logan Pearsall Smithwas an American-born British essayist and critic. Harvard and Oxford educated, he was known for his aphorisms and epigrams, and was an expert on 17th Century divines. His Words and Idioms made him an authority on correct English language usage. He wrote his autobiography, Unforgotten Years, for which he may be best remembered...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionWriter
Date of Birth18 October 1865
CountryUnited States of America
income matter temperament
Solvency is entirely a matter of temperament and not of income.
thinking people delicious
There are people whose society I find delicious; but when I sit alone and think of them I shudder.
death stars writing
But why wasn't I born, alas, in an age of Adjectives; why can one no longer write of silver-shedding Tears and moon-tailed Peacocks, of eloquent Death, of the Negro and star-enameled Night?
thinking people evil
Only among people who think no evil can Evil monstrously flourish.
men bullets whiskey
Whiskey has killed more men than bullets, but most men would rather be full of whiskey than bullets.
wind forever soul
What shall I compare it to, this fantastic thing I call my Mind? To a waste-paper basket, to a sieve choked with sediment, or to a barrel full of floating froth and refuse? No, what it is really most like is a spider's web, insecurely hung on leaves and twigs, quivering in every wind, and sprinkled with dewdrops and dead flies. And at its centre, pondering forever the Problem of Existence, sits motionless the spider-like and uncanny Soul.
hair friendly together
Fine writers should split hairs together, and sit side by side, like friendly apes, to pick the fleas from each others fur.
dying dread happenings
It is the dread of something happening, something unknown and dreadful, that makes us do anything to keep the flicker of talk from dying out.
mean thinking done
When we say we are certain so-and-so can't possibly have done it, what we mean is that we think he very likely did.
play joy rich
Eat with the rich, but go to the play with the poor, who are capable of joy.
years youth kind
To become young again would seem to me an appalling prospect. Youth is a kind of delirium, which can be cured, if it is ever cured at all, by years of painful treatment.
animal men political
But man is above all a social and political animal; his relations with his fellow human beings form his most absorbing and important interest.
names suits facts
The truth is that the phenomena of artistic production are still so obscure, so baffling, we are still so far from an accurate scientific and psychological knowledge of their genesis or meaning, that we are forced to accept them as empirical facts; and empirical and non-explanatory names are the names that suit them best.
views quality adjectives
The emergence of a new term to describe a certain phenomenon, of a new adjective to designate a certain quality, is always of interest, both linguistically and from the point of view of the history of human thought.