Samuel Johnson Quotes
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I know not whether more is to be dreaded from streets filled with soldiers accustomed to plunder, or from garrets filled with scribblers accustomed to lies.
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But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.
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There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.
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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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OATS - A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.
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GRUBSTREET - The name of a street near Moorsfield, London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems.
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Was there ever yet any thing written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?
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Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him; and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities; as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight.
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Pleasure of itself is not a vice.
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To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
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Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanicks laughs at strength.
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You see they'd have fitted him to a T.
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Sir, you have but two topicks, yourself and me. I am sick of both.
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From Thee, great God: we spring, to Thee we tend,Path, motive, guide, original, and end.
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It is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, if they can have any thing else to amuse them.
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For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill.
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Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition.
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Superfluous lags the vet'ran on the stage.
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Slavery is now no where more patiently endured, than in countries once inhabited by the zealots of liberty.
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A man might write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it.
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Then with no throbs of fiery pain,No cold gradations of decay,Death broke at once the vital chain,And freed his soul the nearest way.
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He delighted to tread upon the brink of meaning.
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Of all the Griefs that harrass the Distrest,Sure the most bitter is a scornful Jest
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Gloomy calm of idle vacancy.