Sydney Smith Quotes on Life (12 Quotes)

Madam, I have been looking for a person who disliked gravy all my life; let us swear eternal friendship.

A life of knowledge is not often a life of injury and crime

All this class of pleasures inspires me with the same nausea as I feel at the sight of rich plum-cake or sweetmeats I prefer the driest bread of common life.

I am convinced digestion is the great secret of life.

There is one piece of advice, in a life of study, which I think no one will object to and that is, every now and then to be completely idle - to do nothing at all.

It is a bore, I admit, to be past seventy, for you are left for execution, and are daily expecting the death-warrant but it is not anything very capital we quit. We are, at the close of life, only hurried away from stomach-aches, pains in the joints, from sleepless nights and unamusing days, from weakness, ugliness, and nervous tremors but we shall all meet again in another planet, cured of all our defects.

If you choose to represent the various parts in life by holes upon a table, of different shapes,some circular, some triangular, some square, some oblong,and the persons acting these parts by bits of wood of similar shapes, we shall generally find that the triangular person has got into the square hole, the oblong into the triangular, and a square person has squeezed himself into the round hole. The officer and the office, the doer and the thing done, seldom fit so exactly that we can say they were almost made for each other.

Life is fortified by many friendships.

Life is a difficulty in the country, and it requires a good deal of forethought to steer the ship, when you are twelve miles from a lemon.

Among the smaller duties of life I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising where praise is not due.

Soup and fish explain half the emotions in life.

Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.