Sydney Smith (3 June 1771 – 22 February 1845) was an English wit, writer and Anglican cleric.
Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed.
The two women exchanged the type of glance women use when there is no knife handy.
Avoid shame, but do not seek glory; nothing so expensive as glory.
You find people ready enough to do the Samaritan, without the oil and twopence.
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.
When you rise in the morning, form a resolution to make the day a happy one for a fellow creature.
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.
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.
Solitude cherishes great virtues and destroys little ones.
Politeness is good nature regulated by good sense.
The thing about performance, even if it's only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities.
A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. Every day sends to their graves obscure men whose timidity prevented them from making a first effort.
No furniture is so charming as books.
A comfortable house is a great source of happiness. It ranks immediately after health and a good conscience.
No man can ever end with being superior who will not begin with being inferior.
Find fault when you must find fault in private, and if possible sometime after the offense, rather than at the time.
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.
Never give way to melancholy; resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach.
Manners are like the shadows of virtues, they are the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow creatures love and respect.
Scotland: That garret of the earth - that knuckle-end of England - that land of Calvin, oatcakes, and sulfur.