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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.

Sydney Smith

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Sydney Smith
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More quotes by Sydney Smith

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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.
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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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Find fault, when you must find fault, in private, if possible and some time after the offense, rather than at the time.
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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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Among the smaller duties of life I hardly know any one more important than that of not praising where praise is not due.
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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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Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.
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Some men have only one book in them, others a library.
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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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Never give way to melancholy resist it steadily, for the habit will encroach.
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Whatever you are by nature, keep to it never desert your line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed.
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A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage.
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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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Hope is the belief, more or less strong, that joy will come.
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Lucy, dear child, mind your arithmetic. You know in the first sum of yours I ever saw there was a mistake. You had carried two (as a cab is licensed to do), and you ought, dear Lucy, to have carried but one. Is this a trifle? What would life be without arithmetic, but a scene of horrors.
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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.
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A comfortable house is a great source of happiness. It ranks immediately after health and a good conscience.
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He who drinks a tumbler of London water has literally in his stomach more animated beings than there are men, women, and children on the face of the globe.
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If you want to improve your understanding, drink coffee.
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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.
Sydney Smith