Izaak Walton Quotes

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

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

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

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

No life is so happy and so pleasant as the life of the well-govern'd angler.

God never did make a more calm, quiet, innocent recreation than angling.

Angling may be said to be so like the mathematics that it can never be fully learned.

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

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

Blessings upon all that hate contention, and love quietnesse, and vertue, and Angling.

Angling is somewhat like poetry, men are to be born so.

I have laid aside business, and gone a'fishing.

If you can't be content with what you have received, be thankful for what you have escaped.

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter.

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

I love any discourse of rivers, and fish and fishing.

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

I am, Sir, a brother of the angle.

You cannot lose what you never had.

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.

If all the theories were correct, there wouldn't be a fish left in all of our lakes and rivers and streams.

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 directed that the stone over his grave be inscribed: Hic jacet hujus sententiae primus auctor: DISPUTANDI PRURITUS ECCLESIARUM SCABIES.

Angling may be saidtobe so likemathematics, that itcan never be fully learnt.

These poor rich men, we anglers pity them perfectly.

There is a wheel within a wheel; a secret sacred wheel of Providence (most visible in marriages), guided by His hand that allows not the race to the swift nor bread to the wise, nor good wives to good men: and He that can bring good out of evil (for mortals are blind to this reason) only knows why this blessing was denied to patient Job, to meek Moses, and to our as meek and patient Mr Hooker.

[Be grateful for the simple things in life. Don't take them for granted. After all...] What would a blind man give to see the pleasant rivers and meadows and flowers and fountains; and this and many other like blessings we enjoy daily.

The person who loses their conscience has nothing left worth keeping.

No man can lose what he never had.

Let me tell you that every misery I miss is a new blessing.

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

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.

Angling is an art, and an art worth your learning.

A companion that feasts the company with and mirth, and leaves out the sin which is usually mixed with them, he is the man; and let me tell you, good company and good discourse are the very sinews of virtue.

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.

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

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.

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; and therefore value it.

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

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

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

That which is everybody's business is nobody's business.

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

You will find angling to be like the virtue of humanity, which has a calmness of spirit and a world of blessing attending upon it.

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.

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

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.

An excellent angler, and now with God.

The will of man is by his reason swayed.

So long as thou are ignorant be not ashamed to learn. Ignorance is the greatest of all infirmities, and when justified, the chiefest of all follies.