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A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson
Merit rather enforces respect than attracts fondness.
Samuel Johnson
Nothing is more common than for men to make partial and absurd distinctions between vices of equal enormity, and to observe some of the divine commands with great scrupulousness, while they violate others, equally important, without any concern, or the least apparent conciousness of guilt. Alas, it is only wisdom which perceives this tragedy.
Samuel Johnson
There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.
Samuel Johnson
There is not, perhaps, to a mind well instructed, a more painful occurrence, than the death of one we have injured without reparation.
Samuel Johnson
Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay an author.
Samuel Johnson
Bashfulness may sometimes exclude pleasure, but seldom opens any avenue to sorrow or remorse.
Samuel Johnson
Few men survey themselves with so much severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favor.
Samuel Johnson
Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause a while from learning to be wise. There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,- Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.
Samuel Johnson
My dear friend, clear your mind of can't.
Samuel Johnson
You think I love flattery (says Dr. Johnson), and so I do but a little too much always disgusts me: that fellow Richardson, on the contrary, could not be contented to sail quietly down the stream of reputation, without longing to taste the froth from every stroke of the oar.
Samuel Johnson
Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the Dove of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus and a writer naturally pleases himself with a performance which owes nothing to the subject.
Samuel Johnson
He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind than the strokes of the oar and many fold in their passage while they lie waiting for the gale.
Samuel Johnson
The drama's laws the drama's patrons give. For we that live to please must please to live.
Samuel Johnson
Books have always a secret influence on the understanding we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas he that reads books of science, thogh without any fixed desire of improvement, will grow more knowing.
Samuel Johnson
The whole of life is but keeping away the thoughts of death.
Samuel Johnson
No man can enjoy happiness without thinking that he enjoys it.
Samuel Johnson
Read the book you do honestly feel a wish and curiosity to read.
Samuel Johnson
You cannot give me an instance of any man who is permitted to lay out his own time contriving not to have tedious hours.
Samuel Johnson
All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.
Samuel Johnson
Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness and captivity would, without this comfort, be insupportable.
Samuel Johnson
