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A mere index hunter, who held the eel of science by the tail.

Tobias Smollett

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Tobias Smollett
Age: 50 †
Born: 1721
Born: March 19
Died: 1771
Died: September 17
Historian
Journalist
Novelist
Physician Writer
Poet
Surgeon
Translator
Tobias George Smollett
Tobias George Smollet
Science
Eels
Index
Hunter
Tail
Hunters
Tails
Held
Mere

More quotes by Tobias Smollett

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The Highlanders regale themselves with whisky. They find it an excellent preservation against the winter cold. It is given with great success to the infants in the confluent smallpox.
Tobias Smollett
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Deep in the frozen regions of the north, A goddess violated brought thee forth, Immortal Liberty!
Tobias Smollett
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To the valiant actions speak alone.
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And hearts resolved and hands prepared The blessings they enjoy to guard.
Tobias Smollett
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The capital is become an overgrown monster which, like a dropsical head, will in time leave the body and extremities without nourishment and support.
Tobias Smollett
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A man's opinion of danger varies at different times, in consequence of an irregular tide of animal spirits and he is actuated by considerations which he dares not avow.
Tobias Smollett
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Some folks are wise and some are otherwise.
Tobias Smollett
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True courage scorns to vent her prowess in a storm of words and to the valiant action speaks alone.
Tobias Smollett
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Nature I'll court in her sequester'd haunts, By mountain, meadow, streamlet, grove, or cell Where the pois'd lark his evening ditty chants, And health, and peace, and contemplation dwell.
Tobias Smollett
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The great Cham of literature. (Samuel Johnson)
Tobias Smollett
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I think for my part one half of the nation is mad - and the other not very sound.
Tobias Smollett
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A mere index hunter, who held the eel of science by the tail. Index-hunter is a term used mockingly, meaning one who acquires superficial knowledge merely by consulting indexes. The '[holding] the eel of science by the tail' allusion was used in 1728 by Alexander Pope (q.v.).
Tobias Smollett
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Thy fatal shafts unerring move I bow before thine altar, Love!
Tobias Smollett
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Writing is all a lottery -- I have been a loser by the works of the greatest men of the age.
Tobias Smollett
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Glory is the child of peril.
Tobias Smollett
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The bread I eat in London, is a deleterious paste, mixed up with chalk, alum, and bone ashes: insipid to the taste, and destructive to the constitution.
Tobias Smollett
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Thy spirit, Independence, let me share! Lord of the lion-heart and eagle-eye thy steps I follow with my bosom bare, nor heed the storm that howls along the sky.
Tobias Smollett