414 quotes
This world, where much is to be done and little to be known.
Come, let me know what it is that makes a Scotchman happy!
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)
Credulity is the common failing of inexperienced virtue; and he who is spontaneously suspicious may justly be charged with radical corruption.
The limbs will quiver and move after the soul is gone.
All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
A man will turn over half a library to make one book.
A country governed by a despot is an inverted cone.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill.
The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749)
It is better to live rich, than to die rich.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
Towering is the confidence of twenty-one.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
Blown about with every wind of criticism.
It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
Let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known.
If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
It is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, if they can have any thing else to amuse them.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
LEXICOGRAPHER — A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.
A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all.
Marriages would in general be as happy, if not more so, if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor.
The diminutive chains of habit are seldom heavy enough to be felt, till they are too strong to be broken.
Slavery is now no where more patiently endured, than in countries once inhabited by the zealots of liberty.
The Idler (1758)