Sydney Smith (3 June 1771 – 22 February 1845) was an English wit, writer and Anglican cleric.
Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time.
A comfortable house is a great source of happiness. It ranks immediately after health and a good conscience.
Among the smaller duties of life I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising where praise is not due.
Heat, ma am! It was so dreadful here that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones.
Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea! How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.
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.
Solitude cherishes great virtues and destroys little ones.
Resolve to make at least one person happy every day, and then in ten years you may have made three thousand, six hundred and fifty persons happy, or brightened a small town by your contribution to the fund of general enjoyment.
The longer I live, the more I am convinced that the apothecary is of more importance than Seneca; and that half the unhappiness in the world proceeds from little stoppages; from a duct choked up, from food pressing in the wrong place, from a vexed duodenum, or an agitated pylorus.
Madam, I have been looking for a person who disliked gravy all my life; let us swear eternal friendship.
It is no more necessary that a man should remember the different dinners and suppers which have made him healthy, than the different books which have made him wise. Let us see the results of good food in a strong body, and the results of great reading in a full and powerful mind.
Errors, to be dangerous, must have a great deal of truth mingled with them. It is only from this alliance that they can ever obtain an extensive circulation.
A man who wishes to make his way in life could do no better than go through the world with a boiling tea-kettle in his hand.
Scotland: That garret of the earth - that knuckle-end of England - that land of Calvin, oatcakes, and sulfur.
Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.
No furniture is so charming as books.
If you want to improve your understanding, drink coffee.
He not only overflowed with learning, but stood in the slop.
The two women exchanged the type of glance women use when there is no knife handy.
No man can ever end with being superior who will not begin with being inferior.