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Cautious age suspects the flattering form, and only credits what experience tells.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
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Teacher
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
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Flattering
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Pride is a vice, which pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in himself
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Men become friends by a community of pleasures.
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It is unpleasing to represent our affairs to our own disadvantage yet it is necessary to shew the evils which we desire to be removed.
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The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.
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Every other enjoyment malice may destroy every other panegyric envy may withhold but no human power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums.
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Why, sir, Sherry is dull, naturally dull but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, Sir, is not in Nature.
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I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.
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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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When a Man is tried of London, he is tired of life.
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Every man wishes to be wise, and they who cannot be wise are almost always cunning.
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Slavery is now nowhere more patiently endured, than in countries once inhabited by the zealots of liberty.
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He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
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It was the maxim, I think, of Alphonsus of Aragon, that dead counsellors are safest. The grave puts an end to flattery and artifice, and the information we receive from books is pure from interest, fear, and ambition. Dead counsellors are likewise most instructive, because they are heard with patience and with reverence.
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The equity of Providence has balanced peculiar sufferings with peculiar enjoyments.
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It is good sense applied with diligence to what was at first a mere accident, and which by great application grew to be called, by the generality of mankind, a particular genius.
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The most useful truths are always universal, and unconnected with accidents and customs.
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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.
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I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.
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He who praises everybody, praises nobody.
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To purchase Heaven has gold the power? Can gold remove the mortal hour? In life can love be bought with gold? Are friendship's pleasures to be sold? No--all that's worth a wish--a thought, Fair virtue gives unbribed, unbought. Cease then on trash thy hopes to bind, Let nobler views engage thy mind.
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