Samuel Johnson quotes - page 22

Assertion is not argument to contradict the statement of An opponent is not proof that you are correct. (Samuel Johnson)
That observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good. View quote
Samuel Johnson
It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination. View quote
Samuel Johnson
A mere literary man is a dull man a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man. View quote
Samuel Johnson
In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness. View quote
Samuel Johnson
The longer we live the more we think and the higher the value we put on friendship and tenderness towards parents and friends. View quote
Samuel Johnson
To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition. View quote
Samuel Johnson
Guilt once harbored in the conscious breast, intimidates the brave, degrades the great. View quote
Samuel Johnson
Man's chief merit consists in resisting the impulses of his nature. View quote
Samuel Johnson
He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly become corrupt. View quote
Samuel Johnson
Fine clothes are good only as they supply the want of other means of procuring respect. (Samuel Johnson)
DULL. 8. To make dictionaries is dull work. View quote
Samuel Johnson
In most ages many countries have had part of their inhabitants in a state of slavery; yet it may be doubted whether slavery can ever be supposed the natural condition of man. It is impossible not to conceive that men in their original state were equal; and very difficult to imagine how one would be subjected to another but by violent compulsion. An individual may, indeed, forfeit his liberty by a crime; but he cannot by that crime forfeit the liberty of his children. View quote
Samuel Johnson
Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. . . . He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic. View quote
Samuel Johnson
Sir, a man who cannot get to heaven in a green coat, will not find his way thither the sooner in a grey one. View quote
Samuel Johnson
Lichfield, England. Swallows certainly sleep all winter. A number of them conglobulate together, by flying round and round, and then all in a heap throw themselves under water, and lye in the bed of a river. View quote
Samuel Johnson
Virtue is too often merely local. View quote
Samuel Johnson
A book should teach us to enjoy life, or to endure it. View quote
Samuel Johnson
That all who are happy are equally happy is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. A small drinking glass and a large one may be equally full, but the large one holds more than the small. View quote
Samuel Johnson
If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him. View quote
Samuel Johnson
The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the praise of servants. (Samuel Johnson)
I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian. View quote
Samuel Johnson
It would add much to human happiness, if an art could be taught of forgetting all of which the remembrance is at once useless and afflictive, that the mind might perform its function without encumbrance, and the past might no longer encroach upon the. View quote
Samuel Johnson
Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience. You will find it a calamity. View quote
Samuel Johnson
The mental disease of the present generation is impatience of study, contempt of the great masters of ancient wisdom, And a disposition to rely wholly upon unassisted genius and natural sagacity. View quote
Samuel Johnson