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It is one of the maxims of the civil law, that definitions are hazardous.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Bookseller
Essayist
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Maxims
Definitions
Civil
Law
Hazardous
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
Justice is indispensably and universally necessary, and what is necessary must always be limited, uniform, and distinct
Samuel Johnson
An epithet or metaphor drawn from nature ennobles art an epithet or metaphor drawn from art degrades nature.
Samuel Johnson
London! the needy villain's general home, The common sewer of Paris and of Rome! With eager thirst, by folly or by fate, Sucks in the dregs of each corrupted state.
Samuel Johnson
Inquiries into the heart are not for man.
Samuel Johnson
In life's last scene what prodigies surprise, Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise! From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, And Swift expires a driveller and a show.
Samuel Johnson
He that resigns his peace to little casualties, and suffers the course of his life to be interrupted for fortuitous inadvertencies or offences, delivers up himself to the direction of the wind, and loses all that constancy and equanimity which constitutes the chief praise of a wise man.
Samuel Johnson
What is the reason that women servants ... have much lower wages than men servants ... when in fact our female house servants work much harder than the male?
Samuel Johnson
Gaiety is to good-humor as animal perfumes to vegetable fragrance. The one overpowers weak spirits, the other recreates and revives them. Gaiety seldom fails to give some pain good-humor boasts no faculties which every one does not believe in his own power, and pleases principally by not offending.
Samuel Johnson
It is a hopeless endeavour to unite the contrarieties of spring and winter it is unjust to claim the privileges of age, and retain the play-things of childhood.
Samuel Johnson
When there is no hope, there can be no endeavor.
Samuel Johnson
The hapless wit has his labors always to begin, the call for novelty is never satisfied, and one jest only raises expectation of another.
Samuel Johnson
And panting Time toil'd after him in vain.
Samuel Johnson
A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
Samuel Johnson
Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.
Samuel Johnson
Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause a while from learning to be wise. There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,- Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.
Samuel Johnson
Some people wave their dogmatic thinking until their own reason is entangled.
Samuel Johnson
It is our first duty to serve society.
Samuel Johnson
Occupation alone is happiness.
Samuel Johnson
Study requires solitude, and solitude is a state dangerous to those who are too much accustomed to sink into themselves
Samuel Johnson
Our aspirations are our possibilities.
Samuel Johnson
