414 quotes
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759)
From Thee, great God: we spring, to Thee we tend,
Path, motive, guide, original, and end.
The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as, by producing something unexpected, surprises and delights.
The Lives of the English Poets (1781)
When desp'rate ills demand a speedy cure,
Distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly.
When desperate ills demand a speedy cure,
Distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly.
Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.
This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.
I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
An age that melts with unperceiv'd decay,
And glides in modest innocence away.
No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.
Mrs. Montagu has dropt me. Now, Sir, there are people whom one should like very well to drop, but would not wish to be dropped by.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
Life is a pill which none of us can bear to swallow without gilding.
Hawkesworth said of Johnson, "You have a memory that would convict any author of plagiarism in any court of literature in the world."
To neglect at any time preparation for death, is to sleep on our post at a siege, but to omit it in old age, is to sleep at an attack.
It is burning a farthing candle at Dover, to shew light at Calais.
Those writers who lay on the watch for novelty, could have little hope of greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former observation.
Lives of the English Poets (1779)
The first years of man must make provision for the last.
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759)
A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected.
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759)
Superfluous lags the vet'ran on the stage.
The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749)
And panting Time toil'd after him in vain.