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Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.

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
Harmless
Dictionary
Originals
Detailing
Original
Signification
Writer
Lexicographer
Literature
Drudge
Words
Dictionaries
Tracing

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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The pleasure of expecting enjoyment is often greater than that of obtaining it, and the completion of almost every wish is found a disappointment.
Samuel Johnson
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None but a fool worries about things he cannot influence.
Samuel Johnson
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Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiarity with knowledge, and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things, when they are shown their form or told their use.
Samuel Johnson
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A merchant may, perhaps, be a man of an enlarged mind, but there is nothing in trade connected with an enlarged mind.
Samuel Johnson
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Knowledge always desires increase, it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but which will afterwards propagate itself.
Samuel Johnson
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The specualtist, who is not content with superficial views, harasses himself with fruitless curiosity and still, as he inquires more, perceives only that he knows less.
Samuel Johnson
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The drama's laws the drama's patrons give. For we that live to please must please to live.
Samuel Johnson
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Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.
Samuel Johnson
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I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of the earth, and that things are the sons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.
Samuel Johnson
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Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal.
Samuel Johnson
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Pride is a vice, which pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in himself
Samuel Johnson
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Those authors who would find many readers, must endeavour to please while they instruct.
Samuel Johnson
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Falsehood always endeavors to copy the mien and attitude of truth.
Samuel Johnson
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The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
Samuel Johnson
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The main of life is composed of small incidents and petty occurrences of wishes for objects not remote, and grief for disappointments of no fatal consequence.
Samuel Johnson
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Suspicion is very often a useless pain.
Samuel Johnson
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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
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men do not suspect faults which they do not commit
Samuel Johnson
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Exert your talents, and distinguish yourself, and don't think of retiring from the world, until the world will be sorry that you retire.
Samuel Johnson
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Poverty has, in large cities, very different appearances it is often concealed in splendour, and often in extravagance.
Samuel Johnson