Samuel Johnson Quotes
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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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A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly.
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All this wealth excludes but one evil,-poverty.
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Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.
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'Enlarge my life with multitude of days!'In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays:Hides from himself his state, and shuns to knowThat life protracted is protracted woe.
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It might as well be said, 'Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.'
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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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That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.
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I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.
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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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Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.
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His conversation does not show the minute-hand, but he strikes the hour very correctly.
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In misery's darkest cavern known,His useful care was ever nighWhere hopeless anguish pour'd his groan,And lonely want retir'd to die.
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EXCISE - A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.
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My friend was of opinion that when a man of rank appeared in that character as an author, he deserved to have his merit handsomely allowed.
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Philips, whose touch harmonious could removeThe pangs of guilty power and hapless love!Rest here, distress'd by poverty no more;Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before;Sleep undisturb'd within this peaceful shrine,Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!
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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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The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.
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Come, let me know what it is that makes a Scotchman happy!
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It is seldom that we find either men or places such as we expect them. ... Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.
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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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I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.
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God bless you, my dear!
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The world is not yet exhausted: let me see something to-morrow which I never saw before.