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The animadversions of critics are commonly such as may easily provoke the sedatest writer to some quickness of resentment and asperity of reply.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Literary Critic
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson
In questions of law or of fact conscience is very often confounded with opinion. No man's conscience can tell him the rights of another man they must be known by rational investigation or historical inquiry.
Samuel Johnson
It is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife.
Samuel Johnson
Every desire is a viper in the bosom, who while he was chill was harmless but when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison.
Samuel Johnson
As a madman is apt to think himself grown suddenly great, so he that grows suddenly great is apt to borrow a little from the madman.
Samuel Johnson
The desires of man increase with his acquisitions.
Samuel Johnson
Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. It becomes cheap as it becomes vulgar, and will no longer raise expectation or animate enterprise.
Samuel Johnson
No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the desire of fond endearments and tender officiousness and, therefore, no one should think it unnecessary to learn those arts by which friendship may be gained.
Samuel Johnson
Diffidence may check resolution and obstruct performance, but compensates its embarrassments by more important advantages it conciliates the proud, and softens the severe averts envy from excellence, and censure from miscarriage.
Samuel Johnson
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
Samuel Johnson
A man has no more right to say an uncivil thing than to act one no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down.
Samuel Johnson
When we see our enemies and friends gliding away before us, let us not forget that we are subject to the general law of mortality, and shall soon be where our doom will be fixed forever.
Samuel Johnson
I have always said the first Whig was the Devil.
Samuel Johnson
In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
Samuel Johnson
Marriage is the best state for man in general, and every man is a worst man in proportion to the level he is unfit for marriage.
Samuel Johnson
The fountain of contentment must spring up in the mind.
Samuel Johnson
Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.
Samuel Johnson
The hopes of zeal are not wholly groundless.
Samuel Johnson
He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.
Samuel Johnson
I fly from pleasure, said the prince, because pleasure has ceased to please I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others.
Samuel Johnson
Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment.
Samuel Johnson
