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Every other author may aspire to praise the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.
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
Praise
Hope
May
Every
Lexicographer
Reproach
Aspire
Author
Escape
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
People seldom read a book which is given to them and few are given. The way to spread a work is to sell it at a low price. No man will send to buy a thing that costs even sixpence without an intention to read it.
Samuel Johnson
Of those that spin out trifles and die without a memorial, many flatter themselves with high opinions of their own importance, and imagine that they are every day adding some improvement to human life.
Samuel Johnson
He who sees different ways to the same end, will, unless he watches carefully over his own conduct, lay out too much of his attention upon the comparison of probabilities and the adjustment of expedients, and pause in the choice of his road, till some accident intercepts his journey.
Samuel Johnson
Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man but I call him an unsociable man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good.
Samuel Johnson
Falsehood always endeavors to copy the mien and attitude of truth.
Samuel Johnson
Life admits not of delays when pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it. Every hour takes away part of the things that please us, and perhaps part of our disposition to be pleased.
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
Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order. - John V. Lindsay No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.
Samuel Johnson
Poverty has, in large cities, very different appearances it is often concealed in splendour, and often in extravagance.
Samuel Johnson
The animadversions of critics are commonly such as may easily provoke the sedatest writer to some quickness of resentment and asperity of reply.
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 every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.
Samuel Johnson
A man of sense and education should meet a suitable companion in a wife. It is a miserable thing when the conversation can only be such as whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted, and probably a dispute about that.
Samuel Johnson
If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards.
Samuel Johnson
Merriment is always the effect of a sudden impression. The jest which is expected is already destroyed.
Samuel Johnson
The Church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another but there should be a stated day for commemorating the birth of our Saviour, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected.
Samuel Johnson
To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which one of the Fathers observes to be not a virtue, but the groundwork of virtue.
Samuel Johnson
There is nothing against which an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse.
Samuel Johnson
When a man feel the reprehension of a friend seconded by his own heart, he is easily heated into resentment.
Samuel Johnson
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
Samuel Johnson
