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I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.
Samuel Johnson
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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
Earth
Son
Things
Daughter
Losing
Heaven
Forget
Words
Lexicographer
Lost
Daughters
Art
Sons
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
Most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould them.
Samuel Johnson
By those who look close to the ground dirt will be seen. I hope I see things from a greater distance.
Samuel Johnson
The business of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues of which we are lamenting our deprivation.
Samuel Johnson
Books, says Lord Bacon, can never teach us the use of books the student must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce his speculations to practice. No man should think so highly of himself as to think he can receive but little light from books no one so meanly, as to believe he can discover nothing but what is to be learned from them.
Samuel Johnson
Conjecture as to things useful, is good but conjecture as to what it would be useless to know, is very idle.
Samuel Johnson
He that wishes to see his country robbed of its rights cannot be a patriot.
Samuel Johnson
The end of writing is to instruct the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing.
Samuel Johnson
Every reader should remember the diffidence of Socrates, and repair by his candour the injuries of time: he should impute the seeming defects of his author to some chasm of intelligence, and suppose that the sense which is now weak was once forcible
Samuel Johnson
In a man's letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process. Nothing is inverted, nothing distorted, you see systems in their elements, you discover actions in their motives.
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 botanist looks upon the astronomer as a being unworthy of his regard and he that is glowing great and happy by electrifying a bottle wonders how the world can be engaged by trifling prattle about war and peace.
Samuel Johnson
This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.
Samuel Johnson
Pension: An allowance made to anyone without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.
Samuel Johnson
No man hates him at whom he can laugh.
Samuel Johnson
No man likes to live under the eye of perpetual disapprobation.
Samuel Johnson
All imposture weakens confidence and chills benevolence.
Samuel Johnson
Every man's affairs, however little, are important to himself.
Samuel Johnson
There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
Samuel Johnson
There is nothing so minute, or inconsiderable, that I would not rather know it than not.
Samuel Johnson
There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.
Samuel Johnson
