Quote

Whisky making is the art of making poison pleasant

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
Whisky
Poison
Pleasant
Making
Art

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to he right.
Samuel Johnson
Image
This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Every period of life is obliged to borrow its happiness from time to come.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Every man is of importance to himself.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is the care of a very great part of mankind to conceal their indigence from the rest. They support themselves by temporary expedients, and every day is lost in contriving for to-morrow.
Samuel Johnson
Image
I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The desires of man increase with his acquisitions.
Samuel Johnson
Image
He who sees different ways to the same end, will, unless he watches carefully over his own conduct, lay out too much of his attention upon the comparison of probabilities and the adjustment of expedients, and pause in the choice of his road, till some accident intercepts his journey.
Samuel Johnson
Image
To be of no Church is dangerous.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Learn the leading precognita of all things-no need to turn over leaf by leaf, but grasp the trunk hard and you will shake all the branches. Advice cherished by Samuel Johnson that that, if one is to master any subject, one must first discover its general principles.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Few faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of a more numerous class of readers, than the use of hard words.
Samuel Johnson
Image
I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of the earth, and that things are the sons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.
Samuel Johnson
Image
That all who are happy are equally happy is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. A small drinking glass and a large one may be equally full, but the large one holds more than the small.
Samuel Johnson
Image
You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Sir, as a man advances in life, he gets what is better than admiration, - judgement, to estimate things at their true value.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The inevitable consequence of poverty is dependence.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The king who makes war on his enemies tenderly distresses his subjects most cruelly.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
Samuel Johnson