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He that is pushing his predecessors into the gulf of obscurity, cannot but sometimes suspect, that he must himself sink in like manner, and, as he stands upon the same precipice, be swept away with the same violence.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Dr Johnson
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson
Wise married women don't trouble themselves about infidelity in their husbands.
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Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.
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He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
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As any custom is disused, the words that expressed it must perish with it as any opinion grows popular, it will innovate speech in the same proportion as it alters practice.
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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.
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If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.
Samuel Johnson
I have already enjoyed too much give me something to desire.
Samuel Johnson
I had done all that I could, and no Man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.
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Remember that nothing will supply the want of prudence, and that negligence and irregularity long continued will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible.
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Merriment is always the effect of a sudden impression. The jest which is expected is already destroyed.
Samuel Johnson
Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.
Samuel Johnson
Every reader should remember the diffidence of Socrates, and repair by his candour the injuries of time: he should impute the seeming defects of his author to some chasm of intelligence, and suppose that the sense which is now weak was once forcible
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Those whose abilities or knowledge incline them most to deviate from the general round of life are recalled from eccentricity by the laws of their existence.
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It is to be steadily inculcated, that virtue is the highest proof of understanding, and the only solid basis of greatness.
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The insolence of wealth will creep out.
Samuel Johnson
The maxim of Cleobulus, Mediocrity is best, has been long considered a universal principle, extending through the whole compass of life and nature. The experience of every age seems to have given it new confirmation, and to show that nothing, however specious or alluring, is pursued with propriety or enjoyed with safety beyond certain limits.
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Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.
Samuel Johnson
Attention and respect give pleasure, however late, or however useless. But they are not useless, when they are late, it is reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind.
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Everybody knows worse of himself than he knows of other men.
Samuel Johnson
The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.
Samuel Johnson
