Quote

Profuseness is a cruel and crafty demon, that gradually involves her followers in dependence and debt that is, fetters them with irons that enter into their souls.

Samuel Johnson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Iron
Fetters
Enter
Extravagance
Gradually
Souls
Dependence
Debt
Involves
Soul
Followers
Cruel
Irons
Demon
Crafty

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
Few of those who fill the world with books, have any pretensions to the hope either of pleasing or instructing. They have often no other task than to lay two books before them, out of which they compile a third, without any new material of their own, and with very little application of judgment to those which former authors have supplied.
Samuel Johnson
Image
You think I love flattery (says Dr. Johnson), and so I do but a little too much always disgusts me: that fellow Richardson, on the contrary, could not be contented to sail quietly down the stream of reputation, without longing to taste the froth from every stroke of the oar.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Some people wave their dogmatic thinking until their own reason is entangled.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Assertion is not argument to contradict the statement of an opponent is not proof that you are correct.
Samuel Johnson
Image
People have now a-days got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do as much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken.
Samuel Johnson
Image
To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Age is rarely despised but when it is, contemptible.
Samuel Johnson
Image
I have always said the first Whig was the Devil.
Samuel Johnson
Image
He that wishes to see his country robbed of its rights cannot be a patriot.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Cautious age suspects the flattering form, and only credits what experience tells.
Samuel Johnson
Image
All this [wealth] excludes but one evil, poverty.
Samuel Johnson
Image
In life's last scene what prodigies surprise, Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise! From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, And Swift expires a driveller and a show.
Samuel Johnson
Image
If one was to think constantly of death, the business of life would stand still
Samuel Johnson
Image
Pension: An allowance made to anyone without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Modern writers are the moons of literature they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients.
Samuel Johnson
Image
When desperate ills demand a speedy cure, Distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly.
Samuel Johnson
Image
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
Image
I do not see, Sir, that it is reasonable for a man to be angry at another, whom a woman has preferred to him but angry he is, no doubt and he is loath to be angry at himself.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The hopes of zeal are not wholly groundless.
Samuel Johnson