Quotes from Samuel Johnson

He that adopts the sentiments of another whom he has reason to believe wiser than himself is only to be blamed when he claims the honours which are not due but to the author, and endeavours to deceive the world into praise and veneration; for to learn is the proper business of youth; and whether we increase our knowledge by books, or by conversation, we are equally indebted to foreign assistance.

While he was at Lichfield, in the college vacation of the year 1729, he felt himself overwhelmed with an horrible hypochondria, with perpetual irritation, fretfulness, and impatience; and with a dejection, gloom, and despair, which made existence misery. From this dismal malady he never afterwards was perfectly relieved; and all his labours, and all his enjoyments, were but temporary interruptions of its baleful influence.

He bemoans our miseries with the tender pity of a Cowper, who, in warning us of life's grovelling pursuits and empty joys, seeks, by withdrawing us from their delusive dominion, to prepare us for "another and a better world." No.

Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success; for it supplies as many images to the mind, and as many topics to the tongue.

Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.

AFFORESTATION  (AFFORESTA'TION)   n.s.[from afforest.] The charter de Foresta was to reform the encroachments made in the time of Richard I. and Henry II. who had made new afforestations, and much extended the rigour of the forest laws.Hales'sCommon Law of England.

Language is the work of man, of a being from whom permanence and stability can not be derived.

It were to be wished that they who devote their lives to study would at once believe nothing too great for their attainment, and consider nothing as too little for their regard

To ADCORPORATE  (ADCO'RPORATE)   v.a.[from ad and corpus.]To unite one body with another; more usually wrote accorporate; which see.

Nothing has so much exposed men of learning to contempt and ridicule as their ignorance of things which are known to all but themselves.

He that can only converse upon questions about which only a small part of mankind has knowledge sufficient to make them curious must lose his days in unsocial silence, and live in the crowd of life without a companion.

A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity; nor is that curiosity ever more agreeably or usefully employed, than in examining the laws and customs of foreign nations.

AGHAST  (AGHA'ST)   adj.[either the participle of agaze,(see AGAZE)  and then to be written agazed, or agast,or from a and gast, a ghost, which the present orthography favours; perhaps they were originally different words.]Struck with horrour, as

If we will have the kindness of others, we must endure their follies

The solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad: the mind stagnates for want of employment, grows morbid, and is extinguished like a candle in foul air.

AMENABLE  (AME'NABLE)   adj.[amesnable, Fr. amener quelqu'un, in the French courts, signifies, to oblige one to appear to answer a charge exhibited against him.]Responsible; subject so as to be liable to enquiries or accounts.

True genius is a mind of large general powers accidentally determined in some particular direction.

It ought to be the first endeavour of a writer to distinguish nature from custom, or that which is established because it is right from that which is right only because it is established

AMISSION  (AMI'SSION)   n.s.[amissio, Lat.]Loss.

Our minds, like our bodies, are in continual flux; something is hourly lost, and something acquired.

ADJUTOR  (ADJU'TOR)   n.s.[adjutor, Lat.] A helper.Dict.   ADJUTORY  (ADJU'TORY)   adj.[adjutorius, Lat.] That which helps.Dict.

It is justly considered as the greatest excellency of art, to imitate nature; but it is necessary to distinguish those parts of nature, which are most proper for imitation: greater care is still required in representing life, which is so often discoloured by passion, or deformed by wickedness. If the world be promiscuously described, I cannot see of what use it can be to read the account; or why it may not be as safe to turn the eye immediately upon mankind as upon a mirrour which shews all

neglected.Locke.2. Reformation of life. Our Lord and Saviour was of opinion, that they which would not be drawn to amendment of life, by the testimony which Moses and the prophets have given, concerning the miseries that follow sinners after death, were not likely to be persuaded by other means, although God from the dead should have raised them up preachers.Hooker,b. v. ¶ 22. Behold! famine and plague, tribulation and anguish, are sent as scourges for amendment.Bible2 Esdras,xvi. 19.

Many complain of neglect who never tried to attract regard.