Quote

The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the praise of servants.

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
Receive
Praise
Private
Therefore
Highest
Virtue
Panegyric
Servants
Servant

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
Do not ... hope wholly to reason away your troubles do not feed them with attention, and they will die imperceptibly away. Fix your thoughts upon your business, fill your intervals with company, and sunshine will again break in upon your mind.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Present opportunities are neglected, and attainable good is slighted, by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages.
Samuel Johnson
Image
That friendship may be at once fond and lasting, there must not only be equal virtue on each part, but virtue of the same kind not only the same end must be proposed, but the same means must be approved by both.
Samuel Johnson
Image
No estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculations than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is to be steadily inculcated, that virtue is the highest proof of understanding, and the only solid basis of greatness.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Games are good or bad as to their nature all may be perverted.
Samuel Johnson
Image
I remember a passage in Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Year chases year, decay pursues decay, Still drops some joy from with'ring life away New forms arise, and diff'rent views engage
Samuel Johnson
Image
As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim and when you are calculating, calculate.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Commerce can never be at a stop while one man wants what another can supply and credit will never be denied, while it is likely to be repaid with profit.
Samuel Johnson
Image
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
Image
It is astonishing that any man can forbear enquiring seriously whether there is a God whether God is just whether this life is the only state of existence.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The mischief of flattery is, not that it persuades any man that he is what he is not, but that it suppresses the influence of honest ambition, by raising an opinion that honour may be gained without the toil of merit.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Fly-fishing may be a very pleasant amusement but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.
Samuel Johnson
Image
These papers of the day have uses more adequate to the purposes of common life than more pompous and durable volumes.
Samuel Johnson
Image
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
Image
Excise: A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.
Samuel Johnson