Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiarity with knowledge, and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things, when they are shown… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Among the innumerable mortifications which waylay human arrogance on every side may well be reckoned our ignorance of the most common objects… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Censure is willingly indulged, because it always implies some superiority: men please themselves with imagining that they have made a deeper search,… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Nothing has tended more to retard the advancement of science than the disposition in vulgar minds to vilify what they cannot comprehend. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. It becomes cheap as it becomes vulgar, and will no… — 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
