414 quotes
The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.
The Life of Sir Thomas Browne (1756)
Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it.
Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
Fine clothes are good only as they supply the want of other means of procuring respect.
But, scarce observ'd, the knowing and the bold
Fall in the gen'ral massacre of gold.
The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749)
There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed.
The Rambler (1750)
I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.
Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
It is as bad as bad can be: it is ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-drest.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
A blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another.
Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
Why, Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.
He that thinks himself capable of astonishing may write blank verse: but those that hope only to please must condescend to rhyme.
Lives of the English Poets (1779)
It might as well be said, "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat."
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.
Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness.
Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.
Anecdotes of Johnson by Hannah More in Johnsonian Miscellanies (1897)
Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.
Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.