Robert Smith Surtees Quotations

Better be killed than frightened to death.

It is an inwariable rule with the dealers to praise the bad points and let the good 'uns speak for themselves.

No one knows how ungentlemanly he can look, until he has seen himself in a shocking bad hat.

Three things I never lends - my 'oss, my wife, and my name.

The only infallible rule we know is, that the man who is always talking about being a gentleman never is one.

No man rides harder than my Lord Scamperdale - always goes as if he had a spare neck in his pocket.

The supply of good fellows is by no means in excess of the demand. A man has only to hoist the flag of hospitality to insure a very considerable amount of custom.

There is no secret closer than what passes between a man and his horse

It ar'n't that I loves the fox less, but that I loves the 'ound more.

The country has its charms-cheapness for one.

There are three sorts of lawyers - able, unable and lamentable.

The horse loves the hound, and I loves both.

Some think that people come to a ball to do nothing but dance; whereas everyone knows that the real business of a ball is to look out for a wife, to look after a wife, or to look after someone else's wife...

Life would be very pleasant if it were not for its enjoyments.

Women never look so well as when one comes in wet and dirty from hunting.

More people are flattered into virtue than bullied out of vice.

There is no secret so close as that between a rider and his horse.