Izaak Walton Quotes

39 Sourced Quotes

We may say of angling as Dr. Boteler said of strawberries: "Doubtless God could have made a better berry, but doubtless God never did"; and so, if I might be judge, God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling.

Izaak Walton
God has two dwellings — one in heaven, and the other in a meek and thankful heart.

Izaak Walton
As no man is born an artist, so no man is born an angler.

Izaak Walton
It is agreed by most men, that the Eele is a most daintie fish; the Romans have esteemed her the Helena of their feasts, and some The Queen of pleasure.

Izaak Walton
And though it is most certain, that two lutes being both strung and turned to an equal pitch, and then one played upon, the other will warble a faint audible harmony in answer to the same tune: yet many will not believe there is any such thing as sympathy of souls, and I am well pleased that every reader do enjoy his own opinion.

Izaak Walton
I have laid aside business, and gone a-fishing.

Izaak Walton
The great secretary of Nature and all learning, Sir Francis Bacon.

Izaak Walton
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

Izaak Walton
Blessings we enjoy daily, and for most of them, because they be so common, we forget to pay our praises. But let not us, because it is a sacrifice so pleasing to Him who still protects us, and gives us flowers and showers and meat and content.

Izaak Walton
Look to your health; and if you have it, praise God, and value it next to a good conscience; for health is the second blessing that we mortals are capable of; a blessing that money cannot buy.

Izaak Walton
Of which, if thou be a severe, sour-complexioned man, then I here disallow thee to be a competent judge.

Izaak Walton
O, sir, doubt not that Angling is an art; is it not an art to deceive a trout with an artificial fly?

Izaak Walton
Affliction is a divine diet which though it be not pleasing to mankind, yet almighty God hath often imposed it as a good, thought bitter, physic, to those children whose souls are dearest to him.

Izaak Walton
If I should begin but to name the several sorts of strange fish... that run into the sea, I might beget wonder in you, or unbelief, or both; and yet I will venture to tell you..

Izaak Walton
The Waters are Nature's storehouse in which she locks up her wonders..

Izaak Walton
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.

Izaak Walton
I have known a very good, fisher angle diligently four or six hours for a river carp, and not have a bite.

Izaak Walton
Let us be thankful for health and competence, and, above all, for a quiet conscience.

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

Izaak Walton
Doubt not but angling will prove to be so pleasant that it will prove to be, like virtue, a reward to itself.

Izaak Walton
Of this blest man, let his just praise be given,
Heaven was in him, before he was in heaven.

Izaak Walton
But God, who is able to prevail, wrestled with him, as the Angel did with Jacob, and marked him; marked him for his own; marked him with a blessing, a blessing of obedience to the motions of his blessed Spirit.

Izaak Walton
Sir Henry Wotton was a most dear lover and a frequent practiser of the Art of Angling; of which he would say, "'T was an employment for his idle time, which was then not idly spent, a rest to his mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of contentedness;" and "that it begat habits of peace and patience in those that professed and practised it."

Izaak Walton
Rivers and the inhabitants of the watery element are made for wise men to contemplate, and for fools to pass by without consideration.

Izaak Walton
I remember that a wise friend of mine did usually say, "That which is everybody's business is nobody's business."

Izaak Walton
Angling may be said to be so like the mathematics that it can never be fully learnt.

Izaak Walton
Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.

Izaak Walton
Let the blessing of St. Peter's Master be... upon all that are lovers of virtue, and dare trust in his Providence, and be quiet and go a-angling.

Izaak Walton
You will find angling to be like the virtue of humility, which has a calmness of spirit and a world of other blessings attending upon it.

Izaak Walton
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.

Izaak Walton