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The care of the critic should be to distinguish error from inability, faults of inexperience from defects of nature.
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
Faults
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Inexperience
Nature
Distinguish
Care
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Defects
Inability
Error
Errors
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
People in general do not willingly read if they have anything else to amuse them.
Samuel Johnson
He that resigns his peace to little casualties, and suffers the course of his life to be interrupted for fortuitous inadvertencies or offences, delivers up himself to the direction of the wind, and loses all that constancy and equanimity which constitutes the chief praise of a wise man.
Samuel Johnson
Politeness is one of those advantages which we never estimate rightly but by the inconvenience of its loss.
Samuel Johnson
Trust as little as you can to report, and examine all you can by your own senses.
Samuel Johnson
Fear naturally quickens the flight of guilt.
Samuel Johnson
That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm, quiet interchange of sentiments...
Samuel Johnson
Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness.
Samuel Johnson
This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.
Samuel Johnson
Youth enters the world with very happy prejudices in her own favour.
Samuel Johnson
The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestic privacies, and display the minute details of daily life, were exterior appendages are cast aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and virtue.
Samuel Johnson
The mind is refrigerated by interruption the thoughts are diverted from the principle subject the reader is weary, he suspects not why and at last throws away the book, which he has too diligently studied.
Samuel Johnson
The hapless wit has his labors always to begin, the call for novelty is never satisfied, and one jest only raises expectation of another.
Samuel Johnson
Advice is offensive, it shows us that we are known to others as well as to ourselves.
Samuel Johnson
Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
Samuel Johnson
All theory is against free will all experience is for it.
Samuel Johnson
All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance.
Samuel Johnson
We are more pained by ignorance than delighted by instruction.
Samuel Johnson
The seeds of knowledge may be planted in solitude, but must be cultivated in public.
Samuel Johnson
If the man who turnips cries, Cry not when his father dies, 'Tis proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father.
Samuel Johnson
Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.
Samuel Johnson
