414 quotes
He that voluntarily continues ignorant is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces.
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.
The Rambler (1750)
Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.
A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate,
Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?
The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749)
Reflect that life, like every other blessing,
Derives its value from its use alone.
He left the name at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749)
Sir, I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
Of a thousand shavers, two do not shave so much alike as not to be distinguished.
Boswell's Life of Johnson (1777)
I live in the crowds of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.
We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
remarking on the sale of Thrale's Brewery (1781)
The blaze of a reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket.
The act of writing itself distracts the thoughts, and what is read twice is commonly better remembered than what is transcribed.
The Idler (1758)
The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.
Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
Officious, innocent, sincere,
Of every friendless name the friend.
Elegy on the Death of Mr. Robert Levet, A Practiser in Physic (1783)
If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
Shame arises from the fear of men, conscience from the fear of God.
The potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.
The richest author that ever grazed the common of literature.
He was so generally civil that nobody thanked him for it.