Sydney Smith Man Quotations

It is natural to every man to wish for distinction, and the praise of those who can confer honor by their praise, in spite of all false philosophy, is sweet to every human heart; but as eminence can be but the lot of a few, patience of obscurity is a

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.

I never read a book before previewing it; it prejudices a man so.

I never read a book before reviewing it - it prejudices a man so

It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him.

I never could find any man who could think for two minutes together

Mankind are always happy for having been happy; so that, if you make them happy now, you make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it

Man could direct his ways by plain reason, and support his life by tasteless food, but God has given us wit, and flavor, and brightness, and laughter to enliven the days of man's pilgrimage, and to charm his pained steps over the burning marble

A wise man struggling with adversity is said by some heathen writer to be a spectacle on which the gods might look down with pleasure

The schoolboy whips his taxed top; the beardless youth manages his taxed horse with a taxed bridle on a taxed road; and the dying Englishman, pouring his medicine, which has paid seven per cent, into a spoon that has paid fifteen per cent, flings him

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

The man who talks of an unalterable law is probably an unalterable fool

Human beings cling to their delicious tyrannies and to their exquisite nonsense, till death stares them in the face.