414 quotes
The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write: a man will turn over half a library to make one book.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
Here's to the next insurrection of the negroes in the West Indies.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
I'll come no more behind your scenes, David [Garrick]; for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
A Frenchman must be always talking, whether he knows anything of the matter or not; an Englishman is content to say nothing, when he has nothing to say.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
When there is no hope, there can be no endeavor.
I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment.
A desire for knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being, whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all he has to get knowledge.
A desire of knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all that he has to get knowledge.
Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.
All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to shew how much he can spare.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
Alas! another instance of the triumph of hope over experience.
Why, Sir, 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.
Truth […] is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.
Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance and the parent of Liberty.
The Rambler (1750)
Strange! that this general fraud from day to day
Should fill the world with wretches undetected.
The Tragedy of Irene (1749)
His conversation does not show the minute hand—but he generally strikes the hour very correctly.
I fly from pleasure, because pleasure has ceased to please: I am lonely because I am miserable.
How guilt once harbour'd in the conscious breast,
Intimidates the brave, degrades the great.