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A few men are sufficient to broach falsehoods, which are afterwards innocently diffused by successive relaters.

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
Sufficient
Men
Diffused
Innocently
Falsehoods
Successive
Afterwards
Falsehood

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in a few words.
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I have adopted the Roman sentiment, that it is more honorable to save a citizen than to kill an enemy.
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Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy, affectation part of the chosen trappings of folly the one completes a villain, the other only finishes a fop.
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Golf is a game in which you claim the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood.
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A contempt of the monuments and the wisdom of the past, may be justly reckoned one of the reigning follies of these days, to which pride and idleness have equally contributed.
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Turn on the prudent Ant, thy heedful eyes, Observe her labours, Sluggard, and be wise.
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We are more pained by ignorance than delighted by instruction.
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It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
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Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled.
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Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.
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Games are good or bad as to their nature all may be perverted.
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Every man wishes to be wise, and they who cannot be wise are almost always cunning.
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Rash oaths, whether kept or broken, frequently produce guilt.
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By those who look close to the ground dirt will be seen. I hope I see things from a greater distance.
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Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success for it supplies as many images to the mind, and as many topics to the tongue.
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Each person's work is always a portrait of himself.
Samuel Johnson
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Security will produce danger.
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Most men are more willing to indulge in easy vices than to practise laborious virtues.
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Social sorrow loses half its pain.
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Reflect that life, like every other blessing, Derives its value from its use alone.
Samuel Johnson