Samuel Johnson: Sir

Samuel Johnson was English writer. Explore interesting quotes on sir.

Samuel Johnson: 724 quotes26 likes

“Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.”

June 1784, p. 545
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

“Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial, and rather political than religious.”

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

“I [Boswell] was somewhat disappointed in finding that the edition of The English Poets, for which he was to write Prefaces and Lives, was not an undertaking directed by him: but that he was to furnish a Preface and Life to any poet the booksellers pleased. I asked him if he would do this to any dunce's works, if they should ask him.
JOHNSON: "Yes, Sir, and say he was a dunce."”

September 14, 1777, p. 341
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

“Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”

July 31, 1763, p. 132. [Several editions have the variant "hind legs".]
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

“A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.”

1754, p. 72 (n. 4)
Referring to critics
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

“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)

“Why, Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them.”

Feb. 15, 1766, p. 145
Said of Rousseau and Voltaire
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II

“Were it not for imagination, Sir, a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a Duchess.”

May 9, 1778, p. 409
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III