They that have grown old in a single state are generally found to be morose, fretful and captious; tenacious of their own… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
When I first collected these authorities, I was desirous that every quotation should be useful to some other end than the illustration… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
It is almost always the unhappiness of a victorious disputant to destroy his own authority by claiming too many consequences, or diffusing… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Lawful and settled authority is very seldom resisted when it is well employed. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
It ought to be the first endeavour of a writer to distinguish nature from custom; or that which is established because it… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The faults of a writer of acknowledged excellence are more dangerous, because the influence of his example is more extensive; and the… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice that we, for the most part, summon our powers to oppose it without… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
I do not wonder that, where the monastick life is permitted, every order finds votaries, and every monastery inhabitants. Men will submit… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The accidental prescriptions of authority, when time has procured them veneration, are often confounded with the laws of nature, and those rules… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Pound St. Paul's Church into atoms, and consider any single atom; it is to be sure, good for nothing; but put all these atoms… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
If our aim is to praise, we should forget to criticize; if our aim is to criticize, we should remember to praise — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
It is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The basis of all excellence is truth: he that professes love ought to feel its power. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
“The composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelting… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
“The cherubim were never intended as an object of worship, because they were only the appendices to another thing. But a thing is then… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
