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A man is not obliged honestly to answer a question which should not properly be put.
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
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson
You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.
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
London! the needy villain's general home, The common sewer of Paris and of Rome! With eager thirst, by folly or by fate, Sucks in the dregs of each corrupted state.
Samuel Johnson
Sir, there is no end of negative criticism.
Samuel Johnson
A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.
Samuel Johnson
Wealth is nothing in itself it is not useful but when it departs from us.
Samuel Johnson
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
Samuel Johnson
A voyage to the moon, however romantick and absurd the scheme may now appear, since the properties of air have been better understood, seemed highly probable to many of the aspiring wits in the last century
Samuel Johnson
Few have abilities so much needed by the rest of the world as to be caressed on their own terms and he that will not condescend to recommend himself by external embellishments must submit to the fate of just sentiment meanly expressed, and be ridiculed and forgotten before he is understood.
Samuel Johnson
There are, indeed, few kinds of composition from which an author, however learned or ingenious, can hope a long continuance of fame.
Samuel Johnson
Tea's proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence.
Samuel Johnson
Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.
Samuel Johnson
Of riches it is not necessary to write the praise. Let it, however, be remembered that he who has money to spare has it always in his power to benefit others, and of such power a good man must always be desirous.
Samuel Johnson
All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.
Samuel Johnson
Wheresoe'er I turn my view, All is strange, yet nothing new: Endless labor all along, Endless labor to be wrong: Phrase that Time has flung away Uncouth words in disarray, Trick'd in antique ruff and bonnet, Ode, and elegy, and sonnet.
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
The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.
Samuel Johnson
No man should attempt to teach others what he has never learned himself
Samuel Johnson
Knock the 't' off the 'can't.'
Samuel Johnson
Poetry cannot be translation
Samuel Johnson
