Author: Reverend Sydney Smith

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

(1771 – 1845) English writer & Anglican clergyman
Books Communication Reading/Writing

[British politician Thomas Macaulay] has occasional flashes of silence, that make his conversation perfectly delightful.

(1771 – 1845) English writer & Anglican clergyman
Communication Speech

He has occasional flashes of silence that make his conversation perfectly delightful.

(1771 – 1845) English writer & Anglican clergyman
Insults

It requires a surgical operation to get a joke well into a Scotch understanding.

(1771 – 1845) English writer & Anglican clergyman
Entertainment People Places

He not only overflowed with learning, but stood in the slop.

(1771 – 1845) English writer & Anglican clergyman
Education Insults Learning

What a pity it is that we have no amusements in England but vice and religion.

(1771 – 1845) English writer & Anglican clergyman
England Places

What you don't know would make a good book.

(1771 – 1845) English writer & Anglican clergyman
Insults Intelligence

I look upon Switzerland as an inferior sort of Scotland.

(1771 – 1845) English writer & Anglican clergyman
Places

Marriage… resembles a pair of shears so joined that they cannot be separated; often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them.

(1771 – 1845) English writer & Anglican clergyman
Marriage

… there are three sexes – men, women, and clergymen.

(1771 – 1845) English writer & Anglican clergyman
Occupations People

My handwriting looks as if a swarm of ants, escaping from an ink bottle, had walked over a sheet of paper without wiping their legs.

(1771 – 1845) English writer & Anglican clergyman
Communication People Reading/Writing Self

Scotland: That garret of the earth – that knuckle-end of England – that land of Calvin, oatcakes, and sulfur.

(1771 – 1845) English writer & Anglican clergyman
Insults Places

What two ideas are more inseparable than Beer and Britannia?

(1771 – 1845) English writer & Anglican clergyman
Beer England Food/Drink Places

Poverty is no disgrace to a man, but it is confoundedly inconvenient.

(1771 – 1845) English writer & Anglican clergyman
Money Poverty

He not only overflowed with learning, but stood in the slop.

(1771 – 1845) English writer & Anglican clergyman
Education Insults Learning