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

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men do not suspect faults which they do not commit
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About things on which the public thinks long it commonly attains to think right.
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He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.
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Claret is the liquor for boys port for men but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
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If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.
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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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Apologies are seldom of any use.
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Since every man is obliged to promote happiness and virtue, he should be careful not to mislead unwary minds, by appearing to set too high a value upon things by which no real excellence is conferred.
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Combinations of wickedness would overwhelm the world, by the advantage which licentious principles afford, did not those who have long practised perfidy grow faithless to each other.
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A man of sense and education should meet a suitable companion in a wife. It is a miserable thing when the conversation can only be such as whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted, and probably a dispute about that.
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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 vicious count their years virtuous, their acts.
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Security will produce danger.
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Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know That life protracted is protracted woe.
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The future is bought with the present.
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He that pines with hunger, is in little care how others shall be fed. The poor man is seldom studious to make his grandson rich.
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There is a certain degree of temptation which will overcome any virtue. Now, in so far as you approach temptation to a man, you do him an injury and, if he is overcome, you share his guilt.
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Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.
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Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression we must always purpose to do more or better than in time past.
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In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
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