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

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A soldier's time is passed in distress and danger, or in idleness and corruption.
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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.
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The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.
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Rash oaths, whether kept or broken, frequently produce guilt.
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The coquette has companions, indeed, but no lovers,--for love is respectful and timorous and where among her followers will she find a husband?
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The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.
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Everybody knows worse of himself than he knows of other men.
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That observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good.
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You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle.
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Most men are more willing to indulge in easy vices than to practise laborious virtues.
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Fly-fishing may be a very pleasant amusement but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.
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Each change of many-colour'd life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagin'd new.
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Gayety is to good-humor as perfumes to vegetable fragrance: the one overpowers weak spirits the other recreates and revives them.
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Men seldom give pleasure when they are not pleased themselves.
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Present opportunities are neglected, and attainable good is slighted, by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages.
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You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labor, than when you give money merely in charity.
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The mischief of flattery is, not that it persuades any man that he is what he is not, but that it suppresses the influence of honest ambition, by raising an opinion that honour may be gained without the toil of merit.
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I have always said the first Whig was the Devil.
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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 parallel circumstances and kindred images to which we readily conform our minds are, above all other writings, to be found in the lives of particular persons, and therefore no species of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography.
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