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
Enforces
Fondness
Attracts
Merit
Respect
Rather

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes me uneasy and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy.
Samuel Johnson
Image
He that voluntarily continues in ignorance, is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces.
Samuel Johnson
Image
A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The ambition of superior sensibility and superior eloquence disposes the lovers of arts to receive rapture at one time, and communicate it at another and each labors first to impose upon himself and then to propagate the imposture.
Samuel Johnson
Image
All imposture weakens confidence and chills benevolence.
Samuel Johnson
Image
In questions of law or of fact conscience is very often confounded with opinion. No man's conscience can tell him the rights of another man they must be known by rational investigation or historical inquiry.
Samuel Johnson
Image
In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order. - John V. Lindsay No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.
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
Tediousness is the most fatal of all faults.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Friendship may well deserve the sacrifice of pleasure, though not of conscience.
Samuel Johnson
Image
No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Those who have any intention of deviating from the beaten roads of life, and acquiring a reputation superior to names hourly swept away by time among the refuse of fame, should add to their reason and their spirit the power of persisting in their pur
Samuel Johnson
Image
If one was to think constantly of death, the business of life would stand still
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
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Though it is evident, that not more than one age or people can deserve the censure of being more averse from learning than any other, yet at all times knowledge must have encountered impediments, and wit been mortified with contempt, or harassed with persecution.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Never trust your tongue when your heart is bitter.
Samuel Johnson
Image
...it will not always happen that the success of a poet is proportionate to his labor.
Samuel Johnson