Robert Smith Surtees Quotes

22 Sourced Quotes

The only infallible rule we know is, that the man who is always talking about being a gentleman never is one.

Robert Smith Surtees
Better be killed than frightened to death.

Robert Smith Surtees
It is best to let the horse go his way, and pretend it is yours. There is no secret so close as that between a rider and his horse.

Robert Smith Surtees
More people are flattered into virtue than bullied out of vice.

Robert Smith Surtees
No man rides harder than my Lord Scamperdale – always goes as if he had a spare neck in his pocket.

Robert Smith Surtees
There may be said to be three sorts of lawyers, able, unable, and lamentable.

Robert Smith Surtees
Mr. Jorrocks then called upon the company in succession for a toast, a song, or a sentiment. Nimrod gave, "The Royal Staghounds"; Crane gave, "Champagne to our real friends, and real pain to our sham friends."

Robert Smith Surtees
Life would be very pleasant if it were not for its enjoyments.

Robert Smith Surtees
No one knows how ungentlemanly he can look, until he has seen himself in a shocking bad hat.

Robert Smith Surtees
It is an inwariable rule with the dealers to praise the bad points and let the good 'uns speak for themselves.

Robert Smith Surtees
It ar'n't that I loves the fox less, but that I loves the 'ound more.

Robert Smith Surtees
'Untin' fills my thoughts by day, and many a good run I have in my sleep. Many a dig in the ribs I gives Mrs. J. when I think they're runnin' into the warmint…No man is fit to be called a sportsman wot doesn't kick his wife out of bed on a haverage once in three weeks!

Robert Smith Surtees
Three things I never lends—my 'oss, my wife, and my name.

Robert Smith Surtees
He was a gentleman who was generally spoken of as having nothing a-year, paid quarterly.

Robert Smith Surtees
Thus attired, with smiles assumed at the door, the young ladies entered the drawing-room in the full fervour of sisterly animosity.

Robert Smith Surtees
'Ounds choppin' foxes in cover is more a proof of their wice.

Robert Smith Surtees
I am a sportsman all over, and to the back-bone – 'Unting is all that's worth living for – all time is lost wot is not spent in 'unting – it is like the hair we breathe – if we have it not we die – it's the sport of kings, the image of war without its guilt, and only five-and-twenty per cent of its danger.

Robert Smith Surtees
The supply of good fellows is by no means in excess of the demand. A man has only to hoist the flag of hospitality to insure a very considerable amount of custom.

Robert Smith Surtees
Champagne certainly gives one werry gentlemanly ideas, but for a continuance, I don't know but I should prefer mild hale.

Robert Smith Surtees
When at length they rose to go to bed, it struck each man as he followed his neighbour upstairs that the one before him walked very crookedly.

Robert Smith Surtees
Everyone knows that the real business of a ball is either to look out for a wife, to look after a wife, or to look after somebody else's wife.

Robert Smith Surtees
Women never look so well as when one comes in wet and dirty from hunting.

Robert Smith Surtees