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Every old man complains of the growing depravity of the world, of the petulance and insolence of the rising generation.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Literary Critic
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Every
Depravity
Men
Complaining
World
Rising
Generation
Youth
Generations
Petulance
Growing
Complains
Age
Insolence
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet. From those sounds which we hear on small or on coarse occasions, we do not easily receive strong impressions, or delightful images and words to which we are nearly strangers, whenever they occur, draw that attention on themselves which they should transmit to other things.
Samuel Johnson
The expense is damnable, the position is ridiculous, and the pleasure fleeting.
Samuel Johnson
Other things may be seized by might, or purchased with money, but knowledge is to be gained only by study, and study to be prosecuted only in retirement.
Samuel Johnson
Faults and defects every work of man must have.
Samuel Johnson
A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.
Samuel Johnson
A student may easily exhaust his life in comparing divines and moralists without any practical regard to morals and religion he may be learning not to live but to reason... while the chief use of his volumes is unthought of, his mind is unaffected, and his life is unreformed.
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
Cautious age suspects the flattering form, and only credits what experience tells.
Samuel Johnson
People may be taken in once, who imagine that an author is greater in private life than other men.
Samuel Johnson
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
Samuel Johnson
Wit will never make a man rich, but there are places where riches will always make a wit.
Samuel Johnson
Memory is like all other human powers, with which no man can be satisfied who measures them by what he can conceive, or by what he can desire.
Samuel Johnson
Try and forget our cares and sickness, and contribute, as we can to the happiness of each other.
Samuel Johnson
You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labor, than when you give money merely in charity.
Samuel Johnson
Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled.
Samuel Johnson
The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow.
Samuel Johnson
Any of us would kill a cow rather than not have beef.
Samuel Johnson
To wipe all tears from off all faces is a task too hard for mortals but to alleviate misfortunes is often within the most limited power: yet the opportunities which every day affords of relieving the most wretched of human beings are overlooked and neglected with equal disregard of policy and goodness.
Samuel Johnson
Sleep undisturbed within this peaceful shrine, Till angels wake thee with a note like thine.
Samuel Johnson
Nothing is little to him that feels it with great sensibility.
Samuel Johnson
