Samuel Johnson: Trending quotes

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Samuel Johnson: 724 quotes26 likes

“It is as bad as bad can be: it is ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-drest.”

Of roast mutton served to him at an inn, June 3, 1784, p. 535
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

“His conversation does not show the minute-hand, but he strikes the hour very correctly.”

Kearsley, 604
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Johnsoniana

“I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, "Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task."”

July 21, 1763, p. 126
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

“To convince any man against his will is hard, but to please him against his will is justly pronounced by Dryden to be above the reach of human abilities.”

Samuel Johnson The Rambler

No. 93
The Rambler (1750–1752)

“Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young.”

1772
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)

“Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.”

Samuel Johnson book A Dictionary of the English Language

Preface http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/preface.html <br class="br">A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

“Pleasure of itself is not a vice.”

April 15, 1778
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

“I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.”

On his final illness, 1784, p. 566
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

“A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.”

April 24, 1779, p. 424
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

“Slavery is now no where more patiently endured, than in countries once inhabited by the zealots of liberty.”

Samuel Johnson The Idler

No. 11 (June 24, 1758)
The Idler (1758–1760)

“Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.”

Actually said by Thomas Cooper, a U.S. politician.
Misattributed

“No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.”

On Oliver Goldsmith1780
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

“I am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those they provoke.”

Letter to Hester Thrale (5 July 1783) http://books.google.com/books?id=8JuiYLGldcsC&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=%22samuel+johnson%22+few+attacks+ridicule+invective+noise+provoke&source=web&ots=HMST_SM18L&sig=xovCcC2lKiTX9V0p61QvIC_yHW0&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

“I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject.”

1769
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)

“A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity.”

1735
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

“There Poetry shall tune her sacred voice,
And wake from ignorance the Western World.”

The Tragedy of Irene (1749), Act IV, Sc. 1

“This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.”

1763
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)

“The true Genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.”

The Life of Cowley http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/lvwal10h.htm <br class="br">Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)

“He was so generally civil that nobody thanked him for it.”

1777
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)

“Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound; great debts are like cannon, of loud noise but little danger.”

Letter http://books.google.com/books?id=yEA_AQAAMAAJ&q=%22small+debts+are+like+small+shot+they+are+rattling+on+every+side+and+can+scarcely+be+escaped+without+a+wound+great+debts+are+like+cannon+of+loud+noise+but+little+danger%22&pg=PA189#v=onepage to Joseph Simpson, circa 1759 <br class="br">Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I