Quote

Good breeding consists in having no particular mark of any profession, but a general elegance of manners.

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
Manners
Profession
Mark
General
Particular
Good
Breeding
Elegance
Consists

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
The misery of man proceeds not from any single crush of overwhelming evil, but from small vexations continually repeated.
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
Sorrow is the mere rust of the soul. Activity will cleanse and brighten it.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man but I call him an unsociable man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Quotation is a good thing, there is a community of thought in it.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
Samuel Johnson
Image
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
Image
Language is the dress of thought and as the noblest mien or most graceful action would be degraded and obscured by a garb appropriated to the gross employments of rusticks or mechanics, so the most heroick sentiments will lose their efficacy
Samuel Johnson
Image
About things on which the public thinks long it commonly attains to think right.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Reason elevates our thoughts as high as the stars, and leads us through the vast space of this mighty fabric yet it comes far short of the real extent of our corporeal being.
Samuel Johnson
Image
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.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The Church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another but there should be a stated day for commemorating the birth of our Saviour, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected.
Samuel Johnson
Image
If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Poetry cannot be translation
Samuel Johnson
Image
A man, doubtful of his dinner, or trembling at a creditor, is not much disposed to abstracted meditation, or remote enquiries.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The authors that in any nation last from age to age are very few, because there are very few that have any other claim to notice than that they catch hold on present curiosity, and gratify some accidental desire, or produce some temporary conveniency.
Samuel Johnson
Image
A man has no more right to say an uncivil thing than to act one no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Every old man complains of the growing depravity of the world, of the petulance and insolence of the rising generation.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Rags will always make their appearance where they have a right to do it.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.
Samuel Johnson