Quote

Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.

Samuel Johnson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Lexicographer
Linguist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
Politician
Teacher
Translator
Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Matter
Matters
Words
Bigs
Language
Use
Inspirational
Littles
Little
Accustom

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
Pride is a vice, which pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in himself
Samuel Johnson
Image
Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.
Samuel Johnson
Image
To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire and answer inquiries, is the business of the scholar
Samuel Johnson
Image
Nature never gives everything at once.
Samuel Johnson
Image
A soldier's time is passed in distress and danger, or in idleness and corruption.
Samuel Johnson
Image
An epithet or metaphor drawn from nature ennobles art an epithet or metaphor drawn from art degrades nature.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Exert your talents, and distinguish yourself, and don't think of retiring from the world, until the world will be sorry that you retire.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance, and the parent of Liberty.
Samuel Johnson
Image
In Shakespeare's plays, the mourner hastening to bury his friend is all the time colliding with the reveller hastening to his wine.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man but I call him an unsociable man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.
Samuel Johnson
Image
If misery be the effect of virtue, it ought to be reverenced if of ill-fortune, to be pitied and if of vice, not to be insulted, because it is perhaps itself a punishment adequate to the crime by which it was produced.
Samuel Johnson
Image
There ambush here relentless ruffians lay, And here the fell attorney prowls for prey.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Let me rejoice in the light which Thou hast imparted let me serve Thee with active zeal, humbled confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest shall be satisfied with knowledge.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Celestial wisdom calms the mind.
Samuel Johnson
Image
He who is extravagant will quickly become poor and poverty will enforce dependence, and invite corruption.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.
Samuel Johnson
Image
In questions of law or of fact conscience is very often confounded with opinion. No man's conscience can tell him the rights of another man they must be known by rational investigation or historical inquiry.
Samuel Johnson