Sydney Smith
Sydney Smith
Sydney Smithwas an English wit, writer and Anglican cleric...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionClergyman
Date of Birth3 June 1771
again age-and-aging capital close cured daily expecting left meet nervous nights pains past shall
It is a bore, I admit, to be past seventy, for you are left for execution, and are daily expecting the death-warrant; but it is not anything very capital we quit. We are, at the close of life, only hurried away from stomach-aches, pains in the joints, from sleepless nights and unamusing days, from weakness, ugliness, and nervous tremors; but we shall all meet again in another planet, cured of all our defects.
religion vice
What a pity it is that we have no amusements in England but vice and religion!
illusion
I have, alas, only one illusion left, and that is the Archbishop of Canterbury.
chance half join minute others
Never talk for half a minute without pausing and giving others a chance to join in.
invention
Correspondences are like small clothes before the invention of suspenders; it is impossible to keep them up.
constantly human mankind object preaching remind supply
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.
french men sexes women
As the French say, there are three sexes - men, women, and clergymen.
man
I never read a book before previewing it; it prejudices a man so.
cold jump scramble stand thinking worth
To do anything in this world worth doing, we must not stand back shivering and thinking of the cold and danger, but jump in, and scramble through as well as we can.
begins bigot delights martyr public
A bigot delights in public ridicule, for he begins to think he is a martyr
age-and-aging expense past present sign
That sign of old age, extolling the past at the expense of the present
crime injury knowledge life
A life of knowledge is not often a life of injury and crime
flavor society vanilla
Ah, you flavor everything; you are the vanilla of society
advice idle life object piece scholars-and-scholarship
There is one piece of advice, in a life of study, which I think no one will object to; and that is, every now and then to be completely idle - to do nothing at all.