Skip to content

It is well to be in places where man is little, and God is great,— where what he sees all around him has the same look as it had a thousand years ago, and will have the same, in all likelihood, when he has been a thousand years in his grave. It abates and rectifies a man, if he is worth the process.

— Sydney Smith

Another quote →

Topics

Nature

More quotes by Sydney Smith

It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do little.

Elementary Sketches of Moral Philosophy (1849)

Let onion atoms lurk within the bowl
And, scarce suspected, animate the whole.

Lady Holland's Memoir (1855)

Great men hallow a whole people and lift up all who live in their time.

The object of preaching is, constantly to remind mankind of what mankind are constantly forgetting; not to supply the defects of human intelligence, but to fortify the feebleness of human resolutions.

It is always right that a man should be able to render a reason for the faith that is within him.

Lady Holland's Memoir (1855)

All Sydney Smith quotes →

You may also like

Utu, shepherd of the land, father of the black-headed, when you go to sleep, the people go to sleep with you; youth Utu, when you rise, the people rise with you.

Lugalbanda

The winds and waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.

Edward Gibbon The History of the Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire (1776)

Matter gave birth to a passion that has no equal, which proceeded from something contrary to nature. Then there arises a disturbance in its whole body.

Jesus

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Sydney Smith (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.