Samuel Johnson Quotes
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That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?
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No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.
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'Some,' answered Imlac, 'have indeed said that the soul is material, but I can scarcely believe that any man has thought it, who knew how to think; for all the conclusions of reason enforce the immateriality of mind, and all the notices of sense and investigations of science, concur to prove the unconsciousness of matter.
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I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made.
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Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.
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If lawyers were to undertake no causes till they were sure they were just, a man might be precluded altogether from a trial of his claim, though, were it judicially examined, it might be found a very just claim.
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By Numbers here from Shame or Censure free,All Crimes are safe, but hated Poverty.This, only this, the rigid Law persues,This, only this, provokes the snarling Muse.
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Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.
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Wretched un-idea'd girls.
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The potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
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OATS - A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.
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It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them.
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There is a wicked inclination in most people to suppose an old man decayed in his intellects. If a young or middle-aged man, when leaving a company, does not remember where he laid his hat, it is nothing; but if the same inattention is discovered in an old man, people will shrug up their shoulders, and say, 'His memory is going.'
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To convince any man against his will is hard, but to please him against his will is justly pronounced by Dryden to be above the reach of human abilities.
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A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected.
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Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.
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It is always observable that silence propagates itself, and that the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find any thing to say.
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Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.
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The true art of memory is the art of attention.
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Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.
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It might as well be said, 'Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.'
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When learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foesFirst reared the stage, immortal Shakespeare rose;Each change of many-colored life he drew,Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new:Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,And panting Time toiled after him in vain.
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Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings.
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I Boswell happened to say, it would be terrible if he should not find a speedy opportunity of returning to London, and be confined in so dull a place. JOHNSON: 'Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters. It would not be terrible, though I were to be detained some time here.'