Izaak Walton quotes

Izaak Walton was an English writer best known for his book "The Compleat Angler." His work on fishing and his biographical writings about notable figures have had a lasting influence on English literature. He is remembered as one of the most celebrated nature writers and biographers of his era. Here are 37 of his quotes:

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

Izaak Walton

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

Izaak Walton

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter.

Izaak Walton

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

Izaak Walton

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

Izaak Walton

No man can lose what he never had.

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

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

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

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

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

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

An excellent angler, and now with God.

Izaak Walton

I am, sir, a Brother of the Angle.

Izaak Walton

Old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good.

Izaak Walton

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

Izaak Walton

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

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

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

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

Izaak Walton

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

Izaak Walton

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

Izaak Walton