Quote

A man finds in the productions of nature an inexhaustible stock of material on which he can employ himself, without any temptations to envy or malevolence, and has always a certain prospect of discovering new reasons for adoring the sovereign author of the universe.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Reason
Productions
Employ
Without
Envy
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Always
Reasons
Sovereign
Men
Material
Stock
Materials
Discovering
Adoring
Universe
Author
Malevolence
Nature
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Inexhaustible
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Temptation
Temptations

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It is in refinement and elegance that the civilized man differs from the savage.
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You may translate books of science exactly. ... The beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written.
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In life's last scene what prodigies surprise, Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise! From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, And Swift expires a driveller and a show.
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Whatever advantage we snatch beyond a certain portion allotted us by at nature, is like money spent before it is due, which, at the time of regular payment, will be missed and regretted.
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Some people wave their dogmatic thinking until their own reason is entangled.
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men do not suspect faults which they do not commit
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The authors that in any nation last from age to age are very few, because there are very few that have any other claim to notice than that they catch hold on present curiosity, and gratify some accidental desire, or produce some temporary conveniency.
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All imposture weakens confidence and chills benevolence.
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Why, sir, Sherry is dull, naturally dull but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, Sir, is not in Nature.
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A small country town is not the place in which one would choose to quarrel with a wife every human being in such places is a spy.
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There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.
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Wit will never make a man rich, but there are places where riches will always make a wit.
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Riches, perhaps, do not so often produce crimes as incite accusers.
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As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.
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Security will produce danger.
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The wickedness of a loose or profane author is more atrocious than that of a giddy libertine or drunken ravisher, not only because it extends its effects wider, as a pestilence that taints the air is more destructive than poison infused in a draught, but because it is committed with cool deliberation.
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New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new.
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Corneille is to Shakespeare as a clipped hedge is to a forest.
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How few of his friends' houses would a man choose to be at when he is sick.
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Friendship may well deserve the sacrifice of pleasure, though not of conscience.
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