1
" Then humming thrice, he assumed a most ridiculous solemnity of aspect, and entered into a learned investigation of the nature of stink...The French were pleased with the putrid effluvia of animal food; and so were the Hottentots in Africa, and the Savages in Greenland; and that the Negroes on the coast of Senegal would not touch fish till it was rotten; strong presumptions in favour of what is generally called stink, as those nations are in a state of nature, undebauched by luxury, unseduced by whim and caprice: that he had reason to believe the stercoraceous flavour, condemned by prejudice as a stink, was, in fact, most agreeable to the organs of smelling; for, that every person who pretended to nauseate the smell of another's excretions, snuffed up his own with particular complacency... "
― Tobias Smollett , The Expedition of Humphry Clinker
4
" What passes for wine among us, is not the juice of the grape. It is an adulterous mixture, brewed up of nauseous ingredients, by dunces, who are bunglers in the art of poison-making; and yet we, and our forefathers, are and have been poisoned by this cursed drench, without taste or flavour—The only genuine and wholesome beveridge in England, is London porter, and Dorchester table-beer; but as for your ale and your gin, your cyder and your perry, and all the trashy family of made wines, I detest them as infernal compositions, contrived for the destruction of the human species. "
― Tobias Smollett , The Expedition of Humphry Clinker
6
" A novel is a large diffused picture, comprehending the characters of life, disposed in different groups, and exhibited in various attitudes, for the purposes of an uniform plan, and general occurrence, to which every individual figure is subservient. But this plan cannot be executed with propriety, probability, or success, without a principal personage to attract the attention, unite the incidents, unwind the clue of the labyrinth, and at last close the scene, by virtue of his own importance. "
― Tobias Smollett , The Expedition of Humphry Clinker
12
" There is another point, which I would much rather see determined; whether the world was always as contemptible, as it appears to me at present?—If the morals of mankind have not contracted an extraordinary degree of depravity, within these thirty years, then must I be infected with the common vice of old men, difficilis, querulus, laudator temporis acti;14 or, which is more probable, the impetuous pursuits and avocations of youth have formerly hindered me from observing those rotten parts of human nature, which now appear so offensively to my observation. "
― Tobias Smollett , The Expedition of Humphry Clinker
15
" ¡Ay de aquella nación en la que la turba tenga libertad para servir sus propias inclinaciones! El comercio, sin lugar a dudas, es una bendición, mientras esté circunscrito a sus propios canales, pero un exceso de riqueza acarrea siempre un exceso de males: mal gusto, falsos apetitos, falsas necesidades, extravagancia, venalidad y un desprecio del orden que engendran una licenciosidad, insolencia y partidismo que mantienen a la sociedad en continua efervescencia y acaban destruyendo todas las distinciones de la sociedad civil con el único resultado de la anarquía y el motín universales.
Capitán Lismahago "
― Tobias Smollett , The Expedition of Humphry Clinker
18
" If the morals of mankind have not contracted an extraordinary degree of depravity within these 30 years, then I must be infected with the common vice of old men, difficilis, querulus, laudator temporis acti [tiresome, complaining, a praiser of past times]; or, which is more probable, the impetuous pursuits and avocations of youth have formerly hindered me from observing those rotten parts of human nature, which now appear offensively to my observation. "
― Tobias Smollett , The Expedition of Humphry Clinker
