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Politeness is fictitious benevolence.

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
Benevolence
Manners
Fictitious
Politeness

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Sir, as a man advances in life, he gets what is better than admiration, - judgement, to estimate things at their true value.
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I will take no more physick, not even my opiates for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded.
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Spite and ill-nature are among the most expensive luxuries in life.
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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.
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The future is purchased by the present.
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If lawyers were to undertake no causes till they were sure they were just, a man might be precluded altogether from a trial of his claim, though, were it judicially examined, it might be found a very just claim.
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Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal.
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I am a friend to subordination, as most conducive to the happiness of society. There is a reciprocal pleasure in governing and being governed.
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Words become low by the occasions to which they are applied, or the general character of them who use them and the disgust which they produce arises from the revival of those images with which they are commonly united.
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Novelty is indeed necessary to preserve eagerness and alacrity but art and nature have stores inexhaustible by human intellects, and every moment produces something new to him who has quickened his faculties by diligent observation.
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Nothing is more common than to find men, whose works are now totally neglected, mentioned with praises by their contemporaries as the oracles of their age, and the legislators of science.
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Exercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we are decreed but while the soul and body continue united, it can make the association pleasing, and give probable hopes that they shall be disciplined by an easy separation...to die is the fate of man but to die with lingering anguish is generally his folly.
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Small debts are like small shot they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon of loud noise, but little danger.
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It is better to live rich than to die rich.
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Our minds should not be empty because if they are not preoccupied by good, evil will break in upon them.
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The maxim of Cleobulus, Mediocrity is best, has been long considered a universal principle, extending through the whole compass of life and nature. The experience of every age seems to have given it new confirmation, and to show that nothing, however specious or alluring, is pursued with propriety or enjoyed with safety beyond certain limits.
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The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.
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Present opportunities are neglected, and attainable good is slighted, by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages.
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Every reader should remember the diffidence of Socrates, and repair by his candour the injuries of time: he should impute the seeming defects of his author to some chasm of intelligence, and suppose that the sense which is now weak was once forcible
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