Izaak Walton Quotes

39 Sourced Quotes

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
It [angling] deserves commendations;… it is an art worthy the knowledge and practice of a wise man.

Izaak Walton
This dish of meat is too good for any but anglers, or very honest men.

Izaak Walton
I shall stay him no longer than to wish him a rainy evening to read this following discourse; and that if he be an honest angler, the east wind may never blow when he goes a-fishing.

Izaak Walton
Thus use your frog... Put your hook through his mouth, and out at his gills;... and then with a fine needle and silk sew the upper part of his leg, with only one stitch, to the arming-wire of your hook; or tie the frog's leg, above the upper joint, to the armed-wire; and in so doing use him as though you loved him.

Izaak Walton
An honest ale-house where we shall find a cleanly room, lavender in the windows, and twenty ballads stuck about the wall.

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

Izaak Walton
As the Italians say, Good company in a journey makes the way to seem the shorter.

Izaak Walton
I love such mirth as does not make friends ashamed to look upon one another next morning.

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And for winter fly-fishing it is as useful as an almanac out of date.

Izaak Walton