Samuel Johnson: Sir

“Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.”

Samuel Johnson

July 21, 1763, p 514 http://books.google.com/books?id=JOseAAAAMAAJ&q="Truth+Sir+is+a+cow+which+will+yield+such+people+no+more+milk+and+so+they+are+gone+to+milk+the+bull1"&pg=PA514#v=onepage
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I
Context: Hume, and other sceptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify themselves at any expence. Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull. If I could have allowed myself to gratify my vanity at the expence of truth, what fame might I have acquired.

People , Truth

“Sir, what is Poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is: but it is not easy to tell what it is.”

Samuel Johnson

Letter to James Macpherson, 20 June 1778. (Quotation used as epigram to Władysław Tatarkiewicz, "Dwa pojęcia poezji" ("Two Concepts of Poetry"), in Tatarkiewicz's book, Parerga, Warsaw, Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1978, pp. 20–38.)
Letters to and from Dr. Samuel Johnson

Light

“Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?”

Samuel Johnson

Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson, Vol 2

Wine , Tea

“If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.”

Samuel Johnson

1755, p. 83
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

Life , Friendship

“Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

Samuel Johnson

September 19, 1777, p. 351, often misquoted as being hanged in the morning.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson LL.D. Vol 3

Dependency

“Norway, too, has noble wild prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious noble wild prospects. But, Sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!”

Samuel Johnson

July 6, 1763, p. 120
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

“I [Boswell] happened to say, it would be terrible if he should not find a speedy opportunity of returning to London, and be confined in so dull a place.
JOHNSON: "Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters. It would not be terrible, though I were to be detained some time here."”

Samuel Johnson

August 6, 1763, p. 134
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

Time

“Greek, sir, is like lace; every man gets as much of it as he can.”

Samuel Johnson

1780
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

“Sir, I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.”

Samuel Johnson

November 1784, p. 566
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

“Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.”

Samuel Johnson

1781, p. 479
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

Love , Pain , Friendship

“But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.”

Samuel Johnson

July 14, 1763, p. 123
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

Thinking , Housing

“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. Consider, sir; what is the purpose of courts of justice? It is, that every man may have his cause fairly tried, by men appointed to try causes. A lawyer is not to tell what he knows to be a lie: he is not to produce what he knows to be a false deed; but he is not to usurp the province of the jury and of the judge, and determine what shall be the effect of evidence — what shall be the result of legal argument.”

Samuel Johnson

August 15, 1773
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)

Men , Lie , Justice , Business

“Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature.”

Samuel Johnson

July 28, 1763, p. 128
On Thomas Sheridan
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

Pain , Stupidity , Nature

“A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him. A man when he gets into a higher sphere, into other habits of life, cannot keep up all his former connections. Then, Sir, those who knew him formerly upon a level with themselves, may think that they ought still to be treated as on a level, which cannot be; and an acquaintance in a former situation may bring out things which it would be very disagreeable to have mentioned before higher company, though, perhaps, everybody knows of them.”

Samuel Johnson

March 28, 1776, p. 296
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

Life , Thinking

“Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.”

Samuel Johnson

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

“Sir, you have but two topicks, yourself and me. I am sick of both.”

Samuel Johnson

May 1776 http://books.google.com/books?id=8DcUAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Sir+you+have+but+two+topicks+yourself+and+me+I+am+sick+of+both%22&pg=PA53#v=onepage, p. 313
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III