Sydney Smith Quotes

Whatever you are from nature, keep to it; never desert your own line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed; be anything else, and you will be ten thousand times worse than nothing.

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

My living in Yorkshire was so far out of the way, that it was eleven miles away from a lemon.

You never expected justice from a company, did you? They have neither a soul to lose, nor a body to kick.

He (Macaulay) has occasional flashes of silence that make his conversation perfectly delightful.

I have the most perfect confidence in your indiscretion.

Children are excellent physiognomists and soon discover their real friends. Luttrell calls them all lunatics and so in fact they are. What is childhood but a series of happy delusions?

A nice person is neither too tall nor to short, looks clean and cheerful, has no prominent features, makes no difficulties, is never displaced, sits bodkin, is never foolishly affronted, and is void of affectations… A nice person is clear of trumpery little passions, acknowledges superiority, delights in talents, shelters humility, pardons adversity, forgives deficiency, […]

When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, the only effect it produces upon me is to convince me that he is an unalterable fool.

What you don’t know would make a great book.