The Compleat Angler

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

Angling is somewhat like poetry, men are to be born so: I mean, with inclinations to it, though both may be heightened by discourse and practice

No man can lose what he never had.

Sir Henry Wotton was a most dear lover and a frequent practiser of the Art of Angling; of which he would say, "'T was an employment for his idle time, which was then not idly spent, a rest to his mind, a cheerer of his spirits, a diverter of sadness, a calmer of unquiet thoughts, a moderator of passions, a procurer of contentedness;" and "that it begat habits of peace and patience in those that professed and practised it."

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.

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.

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

Of which, if thou be a severe, sour-complexioned man, then I here disallow thee to be a competent judge.

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.

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

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.

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.

I remember that a wise friend of mine did usually say, "That which is everybody's business is nobody's business."

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

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

I am, sir, a Brother of the Angle.

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.

An excellent angler, and now with God.

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

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

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

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.

Old-fashioned poetry, but choicely good.