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What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of the rest of the company.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
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Literary Critic
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson
It is astonishing that any man can forbear enquiring seriously whether there is a God whether God is just whether this life is the only state of existence.
Samuel Johnson
I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task.
Samuel Johnson
The mathematicians are well acquainted with the difference between pure science, which has only to do with ideas, and the application of its laws to the use of life, in which they are constrained to submit to the imperfections of matter and the influence of accidents.
Samuel Johnson
Evil is uncertain in the same degree as good, and for the reason that we ought not to hope too securely, we ought not to fear with to much dejection.
Samuel Johnson
Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.
Samuel Johnson
The size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth.
Samuel Johnson
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.
Samuel Johnson
Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal.
Samuel Johnson
The peculiar doctrine of Christianity is that of a universal sacrifice and perpetual propitiation.
Samuel Johnson
Modern writers are the moons of literature they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients.
Samuel Johnson
A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.
Samuel Johnson
It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.
Samuel Johnson
Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise and motion.
Samuel Johnson
Nature never gives everything at once.
Samuel Johnson
Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes me uneasy and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy.
Samuel Johnson
Novelty is indeed necessary to preserve eagerness and alacrity but art and nature have stores inexhaustible by human intellects, and every moment produces something new to him who has quickened his faculties by diligent observation.
Samuel Johnson
My dear friend, clear your mind of can't.
Samuel Johnson
I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of.
Samuel Johnson
The king who makes war on his enemies tenderly distresses his subjects most cruelly.
Samuel Johnson
If we estimate dignity by immediate usefulness, agriculture is undoubtedly the first and noblest science.
Samuel Johnson
