Samuel Johnson Quotes
-
The poet must write as the interpreter of nature and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of future generations, as a being superior to time and place.
-
There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed.
-
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
-
There Poetry shall tune her sacred voice,And wake from ignorance the Western World.
-
When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation.
-
No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.
-
Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.
-
Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes,And pause a while from learning to be wise.There mark what ills the scholar's life assail - Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.
-
He that overvalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them.
-
Hawkesworth said of Johnson, 'You have a memory that would convict any author of plagiarism in any court of literature in the world.'
-
So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.
-
Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.
-
I refute it thus.
-
In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
-
Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.
-
The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth.
-
Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.
-
Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.
-
There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.
-
As with my hat upon my headI walk'd along the Strand,I there did meet another manWith his hat in his hand.
-
Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and... the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.
-
Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
-
He left the name at which the world grew pale,To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
-
I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.