Quote

Governors being accustomed to hear of more crimes than they can punish, and more wrongs than they can redress, set themselves at ease by indiscriminate negligence, and presently forget the request when they lose sight of the petitioner.

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
Forget
Crimes
Indiscriminate
Accustomed
Redress
Ease
Negligence
Sight
Presently
Crime
Wrongs
Lose
Punish
Loses
Request
Hear
Governors

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When a man feel the reprehension of a friend seconded by his own heart, he is easily heated into resentment.
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The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity... The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
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Most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould them.
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There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.
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Sir, it is wrong to stir up law-suits but when once it is certain that a law-suit is to go on, there is nothing wrong in a lawyer's endeavouring that he shall have the benefit, rather than another.
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A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.
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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.
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A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.
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Since life itself is uncertain, nothing which has life for its basis can boast much stability.
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No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.... There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government.
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A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge.
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To live without feeling or exciting sympathy, to be fortunate without adding to the felicity of others, or afflicted without tasting the balm of pity, is a state more gloomy than solitude it is not retreat, but exclusion from mankind. Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.
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The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.
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All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.
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Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness and captivity would, without this comfort, be insupportable.
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Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiarity with knowledge, and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things, when they are shown their form or told their use.
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Hope is necessary in every condition.
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The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.
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Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is repaid in flattery.
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Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.
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