"Fear naturally quickens the flight of guilt."
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Quote collection
Samuel Johnson quotes (page 33 of 88)
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"Large offers and sturdy rejections are among the most common topics of falsehood."
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"Falsehood always endeavors to copy the mien and attitude of truth."
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"A few men are sufficient to broach falsehoods, which are afterwards innocently diffused by successive relaters."
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"Never believe extraordinary characters which you hear of people. Depend upon it, they are exaggerated. You do not see one man shoot a great deal higher than another."
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"Rags will always make their appearance where they have a right to do it."
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"How gloomy would be the mansions of the dead to him who did not know that he should never die: that what now acts shall continue its agency, and what now thinks shall think on forever!"
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"Sir, a man who cannot get to heaven in a green coat, will not find his way thither the sooner in a grey one."
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"Everybody loves to have things which please the palate put in their way, without trouble or preparation."
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"Any of us would kill a cow rather than not have beef."
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"A man, doubtful of his dinner, or trembling at a creditor, is not much disposed to abstracted meditation, or remote enquiries."
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"Hope is an amusement rather than a good, and adapted to none but very tranquil minds."
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"Good-humor is a state between gayety and unconcern,--the act or emanation of a mind at leisure to regard the gratification of another."
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"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."
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"No man reads a book of science from pure inclination. The books that we do read with pleasure are light compositions, which contain a quick succession of events."
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"To be prejudiced is always to be weak; yet there are prejudices so near to laudable that they have been often praised and are always pardoned."
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"It is the care of a very great part of mankind to conceal their indigence from the rest. They support themselves by temporary expedients, and every day is lost in contriving for to-morrow."
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"The true effect of genuine politeness seems to be rather ease than pleasure."
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"Politeness is fictitious benevolence. Depend upon it, the want of it never fails to produce something disagreeable to one or other."
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"The public pleasures of far the greater part of mankind are counterfeit."
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