"Manners are the shadows of virtues; the momentary display of those qualities which our fellow creatures love, and respect."

Sydney Smith Philosophy See all quotes by Sydney Smith →

React to this quote

More by Sydney Smith

“My idea of heaven is, eating pâté de foie gras to the sound of trumpets.”

“When I hear any man talk of an unalterable law, the only effect it produces upon me is to convince me that he is an unalterable fool.”

“I am old, but I certainly have not that sign of old age, extolling the past at the expense of the present.”

“My living in Yorkshire was so far out of the way, that it was actually twelve miles from a lemon.”

“I look upon Switzerland as an inferior sort of Scotland.”

“Bishop Berkeley destroyed this world in one volume octavo; and nothing remained after his time, but mind — which experienced a similar fate from the hand of Mr. Hume, in 1737.”

Resonant Thoughts

"This Hungarian Van Cliburn impressed me from the outset with a deep and confident involvement in the music, a capacity for both power and delicacy, and a preference for passion over absolute accuracy."

— László Gyimesi

Literature1948–2020

#love

"The universe is a thought of God. After this ideal thought-fabric passed out into reality, and the new-born world fulfilled the plan of its Creator—permit me to use this human simile—the first duty of…"

— Friedrich Schiller

Literature1895–1990

#mind

"What a vast Traffick is drove, what a variety of Labour is performed in the World to the Maintenance of Thousands of Families that altogether depend on two silly if not odious Customs; the taking of S…"

— Bernard Mandeville

Philosophy1670–1733

#writing

"We have long believed that during the time of the Aborigines' domination their landscape did not change. At times it changed dramatically. The basalt plains of that part of Victoria, which was later n…"

— Geoffrey Blainey

Education1930

#life