Quotation added by staff

Why not add this quote to your bookmarks?

  ...the effect a thimbleful of wine has upon me; I feel as flat as----'s jokes; it destroys my understanding: I forget the number of the Muses, and think them xxxix, of course; and only get myself right again by repeating the lines, and finding 'Descend, ye Thirty-Nine!' two feet too long."
All this profound interest in the matter of food and drink was closely connected in Sydney Smith with a clear sense of the influence exercised by the body over the soul.--
I am convinced digestion is the great secret of life.   and that character, talents, virtues, and qualities are powerfully affected by beef, mutton, pie-crust, and rich soups. I have often thought I could feed or starve men into many virtues and vices, and affect them more powerfully with my instruments of cookery than Timotheus could do formerly with his lyre."[173]
According to his own accounts of himself he seems, like most people who are boisterously cheerful, to have had occasional tendencies to melancholy....   Smith, Rev, Sydney

Excerpt from Sydney Smith · This quote is about secrets · Search on Google Books to find all references and sources for this quotation.

• Biography
• Fans
• This quote in blogs