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Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.
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
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson
The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth.
Samuel Johnson
Be not too hasty to trust or to admire the teachers of morality they discourse like angels, but they live like men.
Samuel Johnson
All truth is valuable, and satirical criticism may be considered as useful when it rectifies error and improves judgment he that refines the public taste is a public benefactor.
Samuel Johnson
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
Few men survey themselves with so much severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favor.
Samuel Johnson
Sleep undisturbed within this peaceful shrine, Till angels wake thee with a note like thine.
Samuel Johnson
Stand Firm for your country, and become a man Honour'd and lov'd: It were a noble life, To be found dead, embracing her.
Samuel Johnson
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.
Samuel Johnson
All this [wealth] excludes but one evil, poverty.
Samuel Johnson
I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.
Samuel Johnson
Whatever is formed for long duration arrives slowly to its maturity.
Samuel Johnson
That eminence of learning is not to be gained without labour, at least equal to that which any other kind of greatness can require, will be allowed by those who wish to elevate the character of a scholar since they cannot but know that every human acquisition is valuable in proportion to the difficulty of its attainment.
Samuel Johnson
Is not a patron one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?
Samuel Johnson
Slavery is now nowhere more patiently endured, than in countries once inhabited by the zealots of liberty.
Samuel Johnson
Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.
Samuel Johnson
It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honor, and fictitious benevolence.
Samuel Johnson
The habit of looking on the bright side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.
Samuel Johnson
He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.
Samuel Johnson
In civilized society we all depend upon each other, and our happiness is very much owing to the good opinion of mankind.
Samuel Johnson
That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.
Samuel Johnson