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A mere literary man is a dull man a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.
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
United
Respectable
Business
Commerce
Make
Literary
Men
Dull
Selfish
Mere
Respect
Respectability
Literature
Solely
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
Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all.
Samuel Johnson
When a man feel the reprehension of a friend seconded by his own heart, he is easily heated into resentment.
Samuel Johnson
A book should teach us to enjoy life, or to endure it.
Samuel Johnson
No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction. A man is pleased that his wife is dressed as well as other people, and the wife is pleased that she is dressed.
Samuel Johnson
A man with a good coat upon his back meets with a better reception than he who has a bad one.
Samuel Johnson
To scatter praise or blame without regard to justice is to destroy the distinction of good and evil. Many have no other test of actions than general opinion and all are so far influenced by a sense of reputation that they are often restrained by fear of reproach, and excited by hope of honour, when other principles have lost their power.
Samuel Johnson
A man finds in the productions of nature an inexhaustible stock of material on which he can employ himself, without any temptations to envy or malevolence, and has always a certain prospect of discovering new reasons for adoring the sovereign author of the universe.
Samuel Johnson
Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing.
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
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
In general those parents have the most reverence who most deserve it for he that lives well cannot be despised.
Samuel Johnson
Games are good or bad as to their nature all may be perverted.
Samuel Johnson
The seeds of knowledge may be planted in solitude, but must be cultivated in public.
Samuel Johnson
Want of tenderness is want of parts, and is no less a proof of stupidity than depravity.
Samuel Johnson
Modern writers are the moons of literature they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients.
Samuel Johnson
In Shakespeare's plays, the mourner hastening to bury his friend is all the time colliding with the reveller hastening to his wine.
Samuel Johnson
We may have uneasy feelings for seeing a creature in distress without pity for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them.
Samuel Johnson
Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success for it supplies as many images to the mind, and as many topics to the tongue.
Samuel Johnson
There must always be some advantage on one side or the other, and it is better that advantage should be had by talents than by chance.
Samuel Johnson
