Quote

Merit rather enforces respect than attracts fondness.

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
Attracts
Merit
Respect
Rather
Enforces
Fondness

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
A continual feast of commendation is only to be obtained by merit or by wealth: many are therefore obliged to content themselves with single morsels, and recompense the infrequency of their enjoyment by excess and riot, whenever fortune sets the banquet before them.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Our desires always increase with our possessions. The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.
Samuel Johnson
Image
As the greatest liar tells more truths than falsehoods, so may it be said of the worst man, that he does more good than evil.
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
Assertion is not argument to contradict the statement of an opponent is not proof that you are correct.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Self-love is a busy prompter.
Samuel Johnson
Image
About things on which the public thinks long it commonly attains to think right.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Every man has something to do which he neglects, every man has faults to conquer which he delays to combat.
Samuel Johnson
Image
I never take a nap after dinner but when I have had a bad night, and then the nap takes me.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Try and forget our cares and sickness, and contribute, as we can to the happiness of each other.
Samuel Johnson
Image
We must consider how very little history there is--I mean real, authentic history. That certain kings reigned and certain battles were fought, we can depend upon as true but all the coloring, all the philosophy, of history is conjecture.
Samuel Johnson
Image
No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.
Samuel Johnson
Image
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
Image
Those who have no power to judge of past times but by their own, should always doubt their conclusions
Samuel Johnson
Image
Composition is for the most part an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.
Samuel Johnson
Image
People have now a-days got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do as much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken.
Samuel Johnson
Image
A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Scarce any man becomes eminently disagreeable but by a departure from his real character, and an attempt at something for which nature or education has left him unqualified.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Luxury, so far as it reaches the people, will do good to the race of people it will strengthen and multiply them. Sir, no nation was ever hurt by luxury for, as I said before it can reach but a very few.
Samuel Johnson