Izaak Walton Quotes - Page 3

Angling is somewhat like poetry, men are to be born so: I mean, with inclinations to it, though both may be heightened by discourse and practice

Lord, what music hast thou provided for Thy saints in heaven, when Thou affordest bad men such music on earth!

Angling may be said to be so like the Mathematics that it can never be fully learnt; at least not so fully but that there will still be more new experiments left for the trial of other men that succeed us.

It was wisely said, by a man of great observation, that there are as many miseries beyond riches as on this side of them.

I have then with pleasure concluded with Solomon, Everything is beautiful in his season.

And for winter fly-fishing it is as useful as an almanac out of date.

Doubtless God Could Have Made A Better Berry, But Doubtless God Never Did

We see but the outside of a rich man's happiness; few consider him to be like the silkworm, that, when she seems to play, is at the very same time consuming herself.

Those little nimble musicians of the air, that warble forth their curious ditties, with which nature hath furnished them to the shame of art.

He that loses his conscience has nothing left that is worth keeping. Therefore be sure you look to that, and in the next place look to your health; and if you have it, praise God and value it next to a good conscience.

Let us not repine, or so much as think the gifts of God unequally dealt, if we see another abound with riches, when, as God knows, the cares that are the keys that keep those riches hang often so heavily at the rich man's girdle that they dog him with weary days and restless nights, even when others sleep quietly.

The will of man is by his reason swayed.

An excellent angler, and now with God.

But God, who is ableto prevail, wrestled with him, as the Angel did with Jacob, and marked him; marked him for his own.

For love is a flattering mischief, that hath denied aged and wise men a foresight of those evils that too often prove to be the children of that blind father; a passion, that carries us to commit errors with as much ease as whirlwinds move feathers, and begets in us an unwearied industry to the attainment of what we desire.

Old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good.