Samuel Johnson Quotes
-
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!
-
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.
-
Those writers who lay on the watch for novelty, could have little hope of greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former observation.
-
An age that melts in unperceiv'd decay,And glides in modest innocence away.
-
'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.
-
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.
-
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.
-
A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly.
-
No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.
-
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.'
-
Johnson observed, that 'he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney.'
-
His conversation does not show the minute-hand, but he strikes the hour very correctly.
-
The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.
-
There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
-
It might as well be said, 'Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.'
-
Declamation roared, while Passion slept.
-
Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.
-
God bless you, my dear!
-
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.
-
Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.
-
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.
-
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.
-
Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.
-
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.