Quote

Shakespeare never had more than 6 lines together without a fault.

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
Faults
Lines
Together
Without
Never
Shakespeare
Fault

More quotes by 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
This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The uniform necessities of human nature produce in a great measure uniformity of life, and for part of the day make one place like another to dress and to undress, to eat and to sleep, are the same in London as in the country.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Attack is the reaction. I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds.
Samuel Johnson
Image
None but a fool worries about things he cannot influence.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Our senses, our appetite, and our passions are our lawful and faithful guides in things that relate solely to this life.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Before dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding.
Samuel Johnson
Image
No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the desire of fond endearments and tender officiousness and, therefore, no one should think it unnecessary to learn those arts by which friendship may be gained.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Riches seldom make their owners rich.
Samuel Johnson
Image
A newswriter is a man without virtue, who lies at home for his own profit.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The safe and general antidote against sorrow is employment.
Samuel Johnson
Image
They make a rout about universal liberty, without considering that all that is to be valued, or indeed can be enjoyed by individuals, is private liberty.
Samuel Johnson
Image
People seldom read a book which is given to them and few are given. The way to spread a work is to sell it at a low price. No man will send to buy a thing that costs even sixpence without an intention to read it.
Samuel Johnson
Image
A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Pleasure itself is not a vice
Samuel Johnson
Image
I am always for getting a boy forward in his learning, for that is sure good. I would let him at first read any English book which happens to engage his attention because you have done a great deal when you have brought him to have entertainment from a book. He'll get better books afterwards.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is one of the maxims of the civil law, that definitions are hazardous.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Other things may be seized by might, or purchased with money, but knowledge is to be gained only by study, and study to be prosecuted only in retirement.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The gloomy and the resentful are always found among those who have nothing to do or who do nothing.
Samuel Johnson