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We have always pretensions to fame which, in our own hearts, we know to be disputable.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Lexicographer
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
Politician
Teacher
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Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Always
Disputable
Pretensions
Pretension
Vanity
Hearts
Fame
Heart
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
It is our first duty to serve society.
Samuel Johnson
The pleasure of expecting enjoyment is often greater than that of obtaining it, and the completion of almost every wish is found a disappointment.
Samuel Johnson
Faults and defects every work of man must have.
Samuel Johnson
Large offers and sturdy rejections are among the most common topics of falsehood.
Samuel Johnson
A fellow will hack half a year at a block of marble to make something in stone that hardly resembles a man. The value of statuary is owing to its difficulty. You would not value the finest head cut upon a carrot.
Samuel Johnson
The botanist looks upon the astronomer as a being unworthy of his regard and he that is glowing great and happy by electrifying a bottle wonders how the world can be engaged by trifling prattle about war and peace.
Samuel Johnson
It is indeed not easy to distinguish affectation from habit he that has once studiously developed a style, rarely writes afterwards with complete ease.
Samuel Johnson
You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.
Samuel Johnson
Corneille is to Shakespeare as a clipped hedge is to a forest.
Samuel Johnson
There ambush here relentless ruffians lay, And here the fell attorney prowls for prey.
Samuel Johnson
To neglect at any time preparation for death is to sleep on our post at a siege to omit it in old age is to sleep at an attack.
Samuel Johnson
I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.
Samuel Johnson
Of many, imagined blessings it may be doubted whether he that wants or possesses them had more reason to be satisfied with his lot.
Samuel Johnson
When desperate ills demand a speedy cure, Distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly.
Samuel Johnson
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
When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.
Samuel Johnson
All is not gold that glitters, as we have often been told and the adage is verified in your place and my favour but if what happens does not make us richer, we must bid it welcome, if it makes us wiser.
Samuel Johnson
An infallible characteristic of meanness is cruelty.
Samuel Johnson
Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.
Samuel Johnson
You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.
Samuel Johnson
