Famous Logan Pearsall Smith Quotations

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"People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"There are few sorrows, however poignant, in which a good income is of no avail."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"A slight touch of friendly malice and amusement towards those we love keeps our affections for them from turning flat."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"All Reformers, however strict their social conscience, live in houses just as big as they can pay for."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"Almost all reformers, however strict their social conscience, live in houses just as big as they can pay for."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"An improper mind is a perpetual feast."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"Don't tell your friends their social faults they will cure the fault and never forgive you."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"Don't laugh at a youth for his affectations he is only trying on one face after another to find his own."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"How many of our daydreams would darken into nightmares if there seemed any danger of their coming true"
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"How many of our daydreams would darken into nightmares if there seemed any danger of their coming true!"
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"I cannot forgive my friends for dying; I do not find these vanishing acts of theirs at all amusing."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"I cannot forgive my friends for dying I do not find these vanishing acts of theirs at all amusing."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"If you are losing your leisure, look out You are losing your soul."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"It is through the cracks in our brains that ecstasy creeps in."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"It is the wretchedness of being rich that you have to live with rich people."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"Marriage resembles a pair of shears, so jointed that they cannot be separated often moving in opposite directions, yet always punishing anyone who comes between them."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"Solvency is entirely a matter of temperament and not of income."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists the circulation of the blood."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"The denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists in the circulation of their blood."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection, even though it consists in nothing more than the pounding of an old piano, is what alone gives meaning to our life on this unavailing star."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"The lusts and greeds of the body scandalize the Soul but it has to come to heel."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"The mere process of growing old together will make the slightest acquaintance seem a bosom friend."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"The test of a vocation is the love of the drudgery it involves."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"There are few sorrows in which a good income is of no avail."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"There are two things to aim at in life first, to get what you want and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"There is one thing that matters -- to set a chime of words tinkling in the minds of a few fastidious people."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"To fear death, my friends, is only to think ourselves wise, without being wise for it is to think that we know what we do not know. For anything that men can tell, death may be the greatest good that can happen to them but they fear it as if they knew quite well that it was the greatest of evils. And what is this but that shameful ignorance of thinking that we know what we do not know"
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"To suppose, as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and keep absolutely sober."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"Uncultivated minds are not full of wild flowers, like uncultivated fields. Villainous weeds grow in them, and they are full of toads."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"We need two kinds of acquaintances, one to complain to, while to the others we boast."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"What I like in a good author is not what he says but what he whispers."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"What is more mortifying than to feel that you have missed the plum for want of courage to shake the tree?"
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"What music is more enchanting than the voices of young people, when you can't hear what they say"
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"When they come downstairs from their Ivory Towers, Idealists are very apt to walk straight into the gutter."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"Whiskey has killed more men than bullets, but most men would rather be full of whiskey than bullets."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"All my life, as down an abyss without a bottom. I have been pouring van loads of information into that vacancy of oblivion I call my mind."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"That we should practice what we preach is generally admitted; but anyone who preaches what he and his hearers practice must incur the gravest moral disapprobation."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"Those who set out to serve both God and Mammon soon discover that there isn't a God."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"Happiness is a wine of the rarest vintage, and seems insipid to a vulgar taste."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"What joy can the years bring half so sweet as the unhappiness they've taken away?"
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"What pursuit is more elegant than that of collecting the ignominies of our nature and transfixing them for show, each on the bright pin of a polished phrase?"
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"There is more felicity on the far side of baldness than young men can possibly imagine."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"Then I though of reading -- the nice and subtle happiness of reading ... this joy not dulled by age, this polite and unpunishable vice, this selfish, serene, lifelong intoxication."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us. Ideas of the Stone Age exist side by side with the latest scientific thought. Only a fraction of mankind has emerged from the Dark Ages, and in the most lucid brains, as Logan Pearsall Smith has said, we come upon nests of woolly caterpillars. Seemingly sane men entrust their wealth to stargazers and their health to witch doctors. Giant planes throb through the stratosphere, but half their passengers are wearing magic amulets and are protected from harm by voodoo incantations. Hotels boast of express elevators and a telephone in every room, but omit thirteen from all floor and room numbers lest their guests be ill at ease."
by Bergen Evans
"The indefatigable pursuit of an unattainable perfection, even though it consist in nothing more than in the pounding of an old piano, is what alone gives a meaning to our life on this unavailing star."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"The wretchedness of being rich is that you live with rich people.... To suppose, as we all suppose, that we could be rich and not behave as the rich behave, is like supposing that we could drink all day and stay sober."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"Don't let young people tell you their aspirations; when they drop them they will drop you."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"Don't laugh at youth for his affectations; he is only trying on one face after another to find his own."
by Logan Pearsall Smith
"There is one thing that matters—to set a chime of words tinkling in the minds of a few fastidious people."
by Logan Pearsall Smith


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