"Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay an author."
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Quote collection
Samuel Johnson quotes (page 47 of 88)
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"He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood."
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"Oats. A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people."
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"Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters."
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"To be flattered is grateful, even when we know that our praises are not believed by those who pronounce them; for they prove, at least, our power, and show that our favour is valued, since it is purchased by the meanness of falsehood."
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"The present time is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation."
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"Confidence is a plant of slow growth; especially in an aged bosom"
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"In the bottle discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence."
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"Time quickly puts an end to artificial and accidental fame"
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"There is a certain race of men that either imagine it their duty, or make it their amusement, to hinder the reception of every work of learning or genius, who stand as sentinels in the avenues of fame, and value themselves upon giving Ignorance and Envy the first notice of a prey."
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"The arguments for purity of life fail of their due influence, not because they have been considered and confuted, but because they have been passed over without consideration."
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"I remember a passage in Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield," which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: "I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing."
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"The mischief of flattery is, not that it persuades any man that he is what he is not, but that it suppresses the influence of honest ambition, by raising an opinion that honour may be gained without the toil of merit."
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"Fears of the brave and follies of the wise."
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"The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth."
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"His most frequent ailment was the headache which he used to relieve by inhaling the steam of coffee."
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"Every man, however hopeless his pretensions may appear, has some project by which he hopes to rise to reputation; some art by which he imagines that the attention of the world will be attracted; some quality, good or bad, which discriminates him from the common herd of mortals, and by which others may be persuaded to love, or compelled to fear him."
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"Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal; and he may be properly charged with evil who refused to learn how he might prevent it."
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"No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability."
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"The disturbers of our happiness, in this world, are our desires, our griefs, and our fears."
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