List of Sydney Smith Quotes

[t]he 47th Proposition In Euclid Might Now Be Voted Down With As Much Ease As Any Proposition In Politics; And Therefore If Lord Hawkesbury Hates The Abstract Truths Of Science As Much As He Hates Concrete Truth In Human Affairs, Now Is His Time For Getting Rid Of The Multiplication Table, And Passing A Vote Of Censure Upon The Pretensions Of The Hypotenuse.

Let The Dean And Canons Lay Their Heads Together And The Thing Will Be Done.

What Would Life Be Without Arithmetic, But A Scene Of Horrors?

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.

You Find People Ready Enough To Do The Samaritan, Without The Oil And Twopence.

I Look Upon Switzerland As An Inferior Sort Of Scotland.

Solitude Cherishes Great Virtues And Destroys Little Ones.

Never Give Way To Melancholy; Resist It Steadily, For The Habit Will Encroach.

Among The Smaller Duties Of Life I Hardly Know Any One More Important Than That Of Not Praising Where Praise Is Not Due.

A Great Deal Of Talent Is Lost To The World For Want Of A Little Courage.

What Two Ideas Are More Inseparable Than Beer And Britannia?

No Man Can Ever End With Being Superior Who Will Not Begin With Being Inferior.