Samuel Johnson Quotes
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Goldsmith, however, was a man who whatever he wrote, did it better than any other man could do.
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No man is much pleased with a companion, who does not increase, in some respect, his fondness for himself.
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Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young.
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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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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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Of all the Griefs that harrass the Distrest,Sure the most bitter is a scornful Jest
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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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You see they'd have fitted him to a T.
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He delighted to tread upon the brink of meaning.
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It is as bad as bad can be: it is ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-drest.
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Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties.
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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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Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.
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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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To a poet nothing can be useless.
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A man might write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it.
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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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Sir, you have but two topicks, yourself and me. I am sick of both.
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Pleasure of itself is not a vice.
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He that thinks himself capable of astonishing may write blank verse: but those that hope only to please must condescend to rhyme.
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Superfluous lags the vet'ran on the stage.
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Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.
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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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Example is always more efficacious than precept.