Quotes by Sydney Smith

Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It wasn't reasoned into him, and it cannot be reasoned out.

His enemies might have said before that he talked rather too much; but now he has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful.

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

Whatever you are by 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.

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

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

I am convinced digestion is the great secret of life.

I have no relish for the country; it is a kind of healthy grave.

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

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.