Quote

Power is gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent.

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
Consistent
Evil
Away
Power
Many
Vigilant
Gradually
Stealing

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
The Irish are a fair people: They never speak well of one another.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Since every man is obliged to promote happiness and virtue, he should be careful not to mislead unwary minds, by appearing to set too high a value upon things by which no real excellence is conferred.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Moral sentences appear ostentatious and tumid, when they have no greater occasions than the journey of a wit to his home town: yet such pleasures and such pains make up the general mass of life and as nothing is little to him that feels it with gre
Samuel Johnson
Image
To be of no Church is dangerous.
Samuel Johnson
Image
You think I love flattery (says Dr. Johnson), and so I do but a little too much always disgusts me: that fellow Richardson, on the contrary, could not be contented to sail quietly down the stream of reputation, without longing to taste the froth from every stroke of the oar.
Samuel Johnson
Image
He that wishes to see his country robbed of its rights cannot be a patriot.
Samuel Johnson
Image
When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation.
Samuel Johnson
Image
We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Truth has no gradations nothing which admits of increase can be so much what it is, as truth is truth. There may be a strange thing, and a thing more strange. But if a proposition be true, there can be none more true.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Pain is less subject than pleasure to careless expression.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Those who attempt nothing themselves think every thing easily performed, and consider the unsuccessful always as criminal.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Tears are often to be found where there is little sorrow, and the deepest sorrow without any tears.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Economy is the parent of integrity, of liberty, and of ease, and the beauteous sister of temperance, of cheerfulness and health.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Of many, imagined blessings it may be doubted whether he that wants or possesses them had more reason to be satisfied with his lot.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The mere power of saving what is already in our hands must be of easy acquisition to every mind and as the example of Lord Bacon may show that the highest intellect cannot safely neglect it, a thousand instances every day prove that the humblest may practise it with success.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The mind is refrigerated by interruption the thoughts are diverted from the principle subject the reader is weary, he suspects not why and at last throws away the book, which he has too diligently studied.
Samuel Johnson
Image
As he that lives longest lives but a little while, every man may be certain that he has no time to waste. The duties of life are commensurate to its duration and every day brings its task, which, if neglected, is doubled on the morrow.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Nothing can be truly great which is not right.
Samuel Johnson
Image
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
Image
There are indeed, in the present corruption of mankind, many incitements to forsake truth: the need of palliating our own faults and the convenience of imposing on the ignorance or credulity of others so frequently occur so many immediate evils are
Samuel Johnson