Talk:Samuel Johnson

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• Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
  • Attributed in The Tickler magazine, 1818. [1]
• An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere

More attributed Samuel Johnson quotes

Racism

i do not know the behind the inclusion of johnson's racist quotations, but they have been removed. they are not his best quotes and are out of place on here.—This unsigned comment is by 82.32.7.178 (talk • contribs) .

I think you have to accept that Johnson's "racist quotes" were a product of his time. To delete them is to attempt to rewrite history and to make out that Johnson was a different man than the one he was. —This unsigned comment is by 172.202.49.50 (talk • contribs) .

Good and original

Regarding the misattributed quote "Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good": Something similar was used by politician Arthur Balfour, but with "trite" and "true" in place of the adjectives found here.

Famous Lines

"It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world. " This is my favorite line here. —This unsigned comment is by Josephina Phoebe White (talk • contribs) .

Work in progress

• In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.
  • "The Bravery of the English Common Soldier", in The British Magazine (January 1760)

• Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.
  • A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), preface

• I am not yet so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.
  • A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), preface

• Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.
  • A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), preface

• But these were the dreams of a poet doomed at last to wake a lexicographer.
  • A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), preface

• If the changes we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure.
  • A Dictionary of the English Language (1755), preface

• Dull. To make dictionaries is dull work
  • A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

• Excise. A hateful tax levied upon commodities
  • A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

• Net. Anything reticulated or decussated at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.
  • A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

• Oats. A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.
  • A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

• Patron. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.
  • A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

• Pension. Pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.
  • A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

• The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.
  • A Free Enquiry into the Nature and Origin of Evil (1757)
  • See Soame Jenyns

• I directed them to bring a bundle into the room, and slept upon it in my riding coat. Mr Boswell, being more delicate, laid himself sheets with hay over and under him, and lay in linen like a gentleman.
  • A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775), "Glenelg"

• A Scotchman must be a very sturdy moralist, who does not love Scotland better than truth.
  • A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775), "Ostig in Sky"

• At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.
  • A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775), "Col"

• Grief is a species of idleness.
  • Letter to Mrs Thrale, 17 March 1773, in R. W. Chapman (ed.) The Letters of Samuel Johnson (1952), vol. 1

• He is gone, and we are going.
  • Letter to Mrs Thrale on the death of her son, Harry, 25 March 1776, in R. W. Chapman (ed.) The Letters of Samuel Johnson (1952), vol. 3

• A hardened and shameless tea-drinker, who has for twenty years diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning.
  • The Literary Magazine, vol. 2, no. 13 (1757)

• Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.
  • The Lives of the English Poets (1779–81), "Addison"

• The great source of pleasure is variety. Uniformity must tire at last, though it be uniformity of excellence. We love to expect; and, when expectation is disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.
  • The Lives of the English Poets (1779–81), "Butler"

• A man, doubtful of his dinner, or trembling at a creditor, is not much disposed to abstracted meditation, or remote enquiries.
  • The Lives of the English Poets (1779–81), "Collins"

• The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.
  • The Lives of the English Poets (1779–81), "Cowley"

• Language is the dress of thought.
  • The Lives of the English Poets (1779–81), "Cowley"

• The father of English criticism.
  • The Lives of the English Poets (1779–81), "Dryden"

• This play...was first offered to Cibber and his brethren at Drury-Lane, and rejected; it being then carried to Rich had the effect, as was ludicrously said, of making Gay rich, and Rich gay.
  • The Lives of the English Poets (1779-81), "John Gay" (on The Beggar's Opera)

• In the character of his Elegy I rejoice to concur with the common reader; for by the common sense of readers uncorrupted with literary prejudices...must be finally decided all claim to poetical honours.
  • The Lives of the English Poets (1779–81), "Gray"

• An exotic and irrational entertainment, which has been always combated, and always has prevailed
  • The Lives of the English Poets (1779–81), "Hughes" (on opera)

• We are perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance. Our intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary; our speculations upon matter are voluntary and at leisure.
  • The Lives of the English Poets (1779–81), "Milton"

• An acrimonious and surly republican.
  • The Lives of the English Poets (1779–81), "Milton"

• I am disappointed by that stroke of death, which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.
  • The Lives of the English Poets (1779–81), "Edmund Smith" (on the death of Garrick

• He washed himself with oriental scrupulosity.
  • The Lives of the English Poets (1779–81), "Swift"

• Friendship is not always the sequel of obligation.
  • The Lives of the English Poets (1779–81), "James Thomson"

• Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature.
  • The Plays of William Shakespeare, with Notes (1765), preface

• He that tries to recommend him by select quotations, will succeed like the pedant in Hierocles, who, when he offered his house to sale, carried a brick in his pocket as a specimen.
  • The Plays of William Shakespeare, with Notes (1765), preface

• Love is only one of many passions.
  • The Plays of William Shakespeare, with Notes (1765), preface

• Shakespeare has united the powers of exciting laughter and sorrow not only in one mind but in one composition...That this is a practice contrary to the rules of criticism will be readily allowed; but there is always an appeal open from criticism to nature.
  • The Plays of William Shakespeare, with Notes (1765), preface

• A quibble is to Shakespeare, what luminous vapours are to the traveller; he follows it at all adventures, it is sure to lead him out of his way and sure to engulf him in the mire.
  • The Plays of William Shakespeare, with Notes (1765), preface

• It must be at last confessed, that as we owe everything to him [Shakespeare], he owes something to us; that, if much of our praise is paid by perception and judgement, much is likewise given by custom and veneration. We fix our eyes upon his graces, and turn them from his deformities, and endure in him what we should in another loathe or despise.
  • The Plays of William Shakespeare, with Notes (1765), preface

• I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to be right.
  • The Plays of William Shakespeare, with Notes (1765), preface

• Notes are often necessary, but they are necessary evils.
  • The Plays of William Shakespeare, with Notes (1765), preface

• There are minds so impatient of inferiority, that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.
  • The Rambler, no. 87 (15 January 1751)

• I have laboured to refine our language to grammatical purity, and to clear it from colloquial barbarisms, licentious idioms, and irregular combinations.
  • The Rambler, no. 208 (14 March 1752)

• The business of a poet, said Imlac, is to examine, not the individual, but the species; to remark general properties and appearances: he does not number the streaks of the tulip, or describe the different shades in the verdure of the forest.
  • Rasselas (1759), ch. 10

• Human life is everwhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.
  • Rasselas (1759), ch. 11

• Example is always more efficacious than precept.
  • Rasselas (1759), ch. 30

• It seems to have been erected only in compliance with that hunger of imagination which preys incessantly upon life, and must be always appeased by some employment...I consider this mighty structure as a monument of the insufficiency of human enjoyments.
  • Rasselas (1759), ch. 32

• Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
  • Rasselas (1759), ch. 41

• There is perhaps no class of men, to whom the precept given by the Apostle to his converts against too great confidence in their understandings, may be more properly inculcated, than those who are dedicated to the profession of literature.
  • Sermons (1788), no. 8

• In this state of temporary honour, a proud man is too willing to exert his prerogative; and too ready to forget that he is dictating to those, who may one day dictate to him.
  • Sermons (1788), no. 8 (on schoolmasters)

• He will not leave his promises unfulfilled, nor his threats unexecuted...Neither can he want power to execute his purposes; he who spoke, and the world was made, can speak again, and it will perish.
  • Sermons (1788), no. 10

TBC Ficaia (talk) 10:34, 4 October 2024 (UTC)