Quote

If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.

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
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Think
Distinction
Thinking
Count
Vices
Leaves
Virtue
House
Spoons
Doe
Houses
Really
Vice

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Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.
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No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.
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Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties.
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The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.
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A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company
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If useless thoughts could be expelled from the mind, all the valuable parts of our knowledge would more frequently recur.
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Age looks with anger on the temerity of youth, and youth with contempt on the scrupulosity of age.
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The arguments for purity of life fail of their due influence, not because they have been considered and confuted, but because they have been passed over without consideration.
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Domestic discord is not inevitably and fatally necessary but yet it is not easy to avoid.
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Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world.
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Much is due to those who first broke the way to knowledge, and left only to their successors the task of smoothing it.
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The first step to greatness is to be honest.
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The whole power of cunning is privative to say nothing, and to do nothing , is the utmost of its reach. Yet men, thus narrow by nature and mean by art, are sometimes able to rise by the miscarriages of bravery and the openness of integrity, and, watching failures and snatching opportunities, obtain advantages which belong to higher characters.
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The coquette has companions, indeed, but no lovers,--for love is respectful and timorous and where among her followers will she find a husband?
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None are happy but by anticipation of change.
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Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.
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He that applauds him who does not deserve praise, is endeavoring to deceive the public he that hisses in malice or sport, is an oppressor and a robber.
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Security will produce danger.
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To mean understandings, it is sufficient honour to be numbered amongst the lowest labourers of learning but different abilities must find different tasks. To hew stone, would have been unworthy of Palladio and to have rambled in search of shells and flowers, had but ill suited with the capacity of Newton.
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