Quote

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

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Sydney Smith
Writing
Style
Every
Written
Word
Brevity
Idea
Composing
Running
Vigor
Give
Pens
Ideas
Rule
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General

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No man can ever end with being superior who will not begin with being inferior.
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Some men have only one book in them, others a library.
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What two ideas are more inseparable than beer and Britannia?
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Scotland: That garret of the earth - that knuckle-end of England - that land of Calvin, oatcakes, and sulfur.
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Heat, ma am! It was so dreadful here that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones.
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Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time.
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Do not try to push your way through to the front ranks of your profession do not run after distinctions and rewards but do your utmost to find an entry into the world of beauty.
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Errors, 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.
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Human beings cling to their delicious tyrannies and to their exquisite nonsense, till death stares them in the face.
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Politeness is good nature regulated by good sense.
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Never try to reason the prejudice out of a man. It was not reasoned into him, and cannot be reasoned out.
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Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.
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Have the courage to be ignorant of a great number of things, in order to avoid the calamity of being ignorant of everything.
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we know nothing of tomorrow, our business is to be good and happy today
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If you want to improve your understanding, drink coffee.
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Resolve to make at least one person happy every day, and then in ten years you may have made three thousand, six hundred and fifty persons happy, or brightened a small town by your contribution to the fund of general enjoyment.
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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.
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I look upon Switzerland as an inferior sort of Scotland.
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Oh, don't tell me of facts, I never believe facts you know, [George] Canning said nothing was so fallacious as facts, except figures.
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Thank God for tea! What would the world do without tea! How did it exist? I am glad I was not born before tea.
Sydney Smith