Quote

To excite opposition and inflame malevolence is the unhappy privilege of courage made arrogant by consciousness of strength.

Samuel Johnson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Lexicographer
Linguist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
Politician
Teacher
Translator
Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Strength
Malevolence
Consciousness
Excite
Made
Arrogant
Arrogance
Opposition
Unhappy
Privilege
Courage
Inflame

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
Luxury, so far as it reaches the people, will do good to the race of people it will strengthen and multiply them. Sir, no nation was ever hurt by luxury for, as I said before it can reach but a very few.
Samuel Johnson
Image
If the guardian or the mother Tell the woes of willful waste, Scorn their counsel and their pother, You can hang or drown at last.
Samuel Johnson
Image
He that accepts protection, stipulates obedience. We have always protected the Americans we may therefore subject them to government.
Samuel Johnson
Image
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
Image
A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Combinations of wickedness would overwhelm the world, by the advantage which licentious principles afford, did not those who have long practised perfidy grow faithless to each other.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Labor's face is wrinkled with the wind, and swarthy with the sun.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Reason elevates our thoughts as high as the stars, and leads us through the vast space of this mighty fabric yet it comes far short of the real extent of our corporeal being.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Our desires always increase with our possessions. The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The balls of sight are so formed, that one man's eyes are spectacles to another, to read his heart with.
Samuel Johnson
Image
I have adopted the Roman sentiment, that it is more honorable to save a citizen than to kill an enemy.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Men go to sea, before they know the unhappiness of that way of life and when they have come to know it, they cannot escape from it, because it is then too late to choose another profession as indeed is generally the case with men, when they have once engaged in any particular way of life.
Samuel Johnson
Image
So scanty is our present allowance of happiness that in many situations life could scarcely be supported if hope were not allowed to relieve the present hour by pleasures borrowed from the future.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Every man that has felt pain knows how little all other comforts can gladden him to whom health is denied. Yet who is there does not sometimes hazard it for the enjoyment of an hour?
Samuel Johnson
Image
An epithet or metaphor drawn from nature ennobles art an epithet or metaphor drawn from art degrades nature.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Smoking is a shocking thing - blowing smoke out of our mouths into other people's mouths, eyes, and noses, and having the same thing done to us.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is indeed not easy to distinguish affectation from habit he that has once studiously developed a style, rarely writes afterwards with complete ease.
Samuel Johnson
Image
We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.
Samuel Johnson
Image
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.
Samuel Johnson