Author Profile
Sydney Smith
1771 – 1845 • English • Clergyman
38
Total Quotes
Collected Meditations
Showing 38 quotesErrors, 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.— Sydney Smith
Find fault when you must find fault in private, and if possible sometime after the offense, rather than at the time.— Sydney Smith
Bishop Berkeley destroyed this world in one volume octavo; and nothing remained, after his time, but mind; which experienced a similar fate from the hand of Mr. Hume in 1737.— Sydney Smith
Among the smaller duties of life I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising where praise is not due.— Sydney Smith
Correspondences are like small clothes before the invention of suspenders; it is impossible to keep them up.— Sydney Smith
It is safest to be moderately base - to be flexible in shame, and to be always ready for what is generous, good, and just, when anything is to be gained by virtue.— Sydney Smith
Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed.— Sydney Smith
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.— Sydney Smith
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.— Sydney Smith