James Wood, comp. Dictionary of Quotations. 1899.
Izaak Walton
Angling is somewhat like poetry; men are to be born so.
Good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.
He that loses his conscience has nothing left that is worth keeping.
If thou be a severe, sour-complexioned man, then here I disallow thee to be a competent judge.
Misery that I miss is a new mercy.
Old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good.
Use him (the frog or bait) as if you loved him.
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.
We see but the outside of the rich man’s happiness; few consider him to be like the silkworm, that, when she seems to play, is at the very same time spinning her own bowels and consuming herself.
What is everybody’s business is nobody’s business.
Words are men’s daughters, but God’s sons are things.
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.