Sydney Smith Quotes

Billy Tauzin is one of the most interesting people in Washington. He is smart, funny, and interesting.

Runty little bastard…just about the most dangerous person around [with a] powerful constituency.

She [Margaret Thatcher] cannot see an institution without hitting it with her handbag.

I wish Stanley Baldwin no ill, but it would have been much better if he had never lived.

I have seen two tremendous works of nature in America—the Niagara Falls and Mr. [Theodore] Roosevelt.

No industry should have the capacity to inflict economic costs that may even surpass those of a world war.

[Beware of] politicians who promise some plausible plan of reformation in order to new-model the Constitution

Prisons are built with stones of Law, brothels with bricks of Religion.

The public buys its opinions as it buys its meat or takes in its milk, on the principle that it is cheaper to do this than to keep a cow. So it is, but the milk is more likely to be watered.

... the Austrians are quite the stupidest people in Europe … and there is a brutality to their mode of performance …

As with most politicians, it took a disaster for them to do something.

Weak! Weak! Weak!

No bolder seditionist ever moved amongst us as Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Trump is the toughest guy I've ever met, and I've known some killers. His movement is bigger than the Republican Party, and he knows it.

A man with a mouth like a mastiff, a brow like a mountain, and eyes like burning antracite - that was Dan'l Webster in his prime.

I think directors look at me because I am an energetic person with a strong personality and always like to make people laugh.

I want to be influential as a legislator.

When I was working on a Victorian-era novel, to get in the mood, I read several historical novels set in approximately the same period and place, and really enjoyed the detective novels of John Dickson Carr.

Donald Rumsfeld is the most ruthless man I have ever met? and I mean that as a compliment.

My gentleman gives the law where he is; he will outpray saints in chapel, outgeneral veterans in the field, and outshine all courtesy in the hall. He is good company for pirates, and good with academicians; so that it is useless to fortify yourself against him; he has the private entrance to all minds, and I could as easily exclude myself, as him.

One thing we do know is that mass literacy is a product of the 19th century, at least in English-speaking cultures - Ireland, England, Scotland, Canada, and the U. S.

I admire Obama, and I like him. I think he has a great deal of talent. He should be applauded for his eloquence and for his ability to motivate millions.

Boris Johnson is a man of great attributes and great qualities.

Palin is smart, politically skilled, courageous and likable. Her convention and debate performances were impressive.

I'm of course nostalgic for Barack Obama all of a sudden.