“Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things.”

— Samuel Johnson

Boulter's Monument. (Supposed to have been inserted by Dr. Johnson, 1745.)
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things." by Samuel Johnson?

Samuel Johnson photo

Samuel Johnson 362

English writer 1709–1784

Related quotes

“Words are men’s daughters, but God’s sons are things.”

Samuel Madden (1686–1765) Irish writer

Boulter's Monument (1745). At Madden's request, the poem was revised for publication by Samuel Johnson, some authorities hold that and that this line was an insertion by Johnson; however Johnson's own account was that he had merely "blotted out" unnecessary lines of the poem. See James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Comprehending an Account of His Studies (1791) p. 175. Compare: "Words are women, deeds are men", George Herbert, Jacula Prudentum.

“I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.”

Samuel Johnson book A Dictionary of the English Language

Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.
Preface http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/preface.html
A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

“A son is a son 'til he gets a wife, but a daughter is a daughter all her life.”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

Source: Love the One You're With

“Certain is it that there is no kind of affection so purely angelic as of a father to a daughter. In love to our wives there is desire; to our sons, ambition, but to our daughters there is something which there are no words to express.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

“We/I am a son/daughter of God. In fact, we are all expressions/projections of the Infinite Conciousness, which is love, that is what I mean when I say "I am a son of god "GOD"!"”

David Icke (1952) English writer and public speaker

ibid.

“Oh my son's my son till he gets a wife,
But my daughter's my daughter all her life.”

Dinah Craik (1826–1887) English novelist and poet

"Young and Old"

“I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.”

Samuel Johnson book A Dictionary of the English Language

Preface http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/preface.html
A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

“We've begun to raise daughters more like sons… but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

“Now, as the Word of God is the Son of God, so the love of God is the Holy Spirit.”

Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274) Italian Dominican scholastic philosopher of the Roman Catholic Church

Sermon on the Apostles' Creed (c. 1273), Art. 8

“How is it that in Ireland, where they never had any knowledge of God but, always, until now, cherished idols and unclean things, they are lately become a people of the Lord, and are called children of God; the sons of. the Irish and the daughters of the chieftains are to be seen as monks and virgins of Christ.”

Saint Patrick (385–461) 5th-century Romano-British Christian missionary and bishop in Ireland

The Confession (c. 452?)

Related topics