Lloyd Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) was an American-born British essayist and critic. He was known for his aphorisms and epigrams and was an expert on 17th-century divines.
Born in Millville, New Jersey, Smith got educated at Haverford College, Harvard University, and Oxford’s Balliol College. He resided in England and on continental Europe after 1888. Becoming a British subject in 1913, he devoted himself to the study of literature and the rules of the English language. His circle of literary friends included Roger Fry, Henry James, and Cyril Connolly. One of his sisters married the philosopher Bertrand Russell, another married the art historian Bernard Berenson.
Smith’s books of aphorisms and essays include Trivia (1902,) More Trivia (1921,) Afterthoughts (1931,) the collection All Trivia (1933,) and Reperusals and Re-collections (1936.) His Words and Idioms (1933) made him an authority on English language usage. He also published collections of short stories, poetry, pamphlets, and biographies. Milton and His Modern Critics (1941) is a defense of John Milton and an attack on T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound for their denigration of Milton.
Smith’s autobiography, Unforgotten Years (1938,) describes his Quaker childhood, his acquaintance with poet Walt Whitman, his accomplishments as a bibliophile, and his experiences as an expatriate.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Logan Pearsall Smith
We grow with years more fragile in body, but morally stouter, and can throw off the chill of a bad conscience almost at once.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Age, Integrity
When they come downstairs from their Ivory Towers, idealists are very apt to walk straight into the gutter.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Idealism, Ideals
Thank Heaven, the sun has gone in, and I don’t have to go out and enjoy it.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Night
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?
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Legacy, Autobiography
There is more felicity on the far side of baldness than young men can possibly imagine.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Men
The mere process of growing old together will make the slightest acquaintance seem a bosom friend.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
We need two kinds of acquaintances, one to complain to, while to the others we boast.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Friendship
People say that life is the thing, but I prefer reading.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Books, Reading
You cannot be both fashionable and first-rate.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Fashion
What humbugs we are, who pretend to live for Beauty, and never see the Dawn.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Beauty
Our names are labels, plainly printed on the bottled essence of our past behavior.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Integrity, Names
The old know what they want; the young are sad and bewildered.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Generations
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.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Money
How many of our daydreams would darken into nightmares, were there a danger of their coming true.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Perspective, Dreams
Solvency is entirely a matter of temperament, not of income.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Security, Wealth, Safety
Denunciation of the young is a necessary part of the hygiene of older people, and greatly assists the circulation of their blood.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Youth, Aging, Just for Fun
Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Vanity
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.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Riches, Wealth
If you are losing your leisure, look out! You are losing your soul.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Leisure, Rest
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.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Books, Reading
What I like in a good author isn’t what he says, but what he whispers.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Writing, Authors & Writing
What joy can the years bring half so sweet as the unhappiness they’ve taken away?
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Excitement, Joy
A best seller is the gilded tomb of a mediocre talent
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Talent
It takes a great man to give sound advice tactfully, but a greater to accept it graciously.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Men, Advice
How it infuriates a bigot, when he is forced to drag out his dark convictions!
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Prejudice
There is one thing that matters—to set a chime of words tinkling in the minds of a few fastidious people.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Life and Living
Most people sell their souls, and live with a good conscience on the proceeds.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Soul
Happiness is a wine of the rarest vintage, and seems insipid to a vulgar taste.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Wine, Happiness
There are few sorrows, however poignant, in which a good income is of no avail.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Money
A best-seller is the golden touch of mediocre talent.
—Logan Pearsall Smith
Topics: Books
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