Quotes from Samuel Johnson

Ind the endless variety of tastes and circumstances that diversify mankind, nothing is so superfluous but that someone desires it; or so common but that someone is compelled to buy it.

To ACCOUPLE  (ACCO'UPLE)   v.a.[accoupler, Fr.]To join, to link together. He sent a solemn embassage to treat a peace and league with the king; accoupling it with an article in the nature of a request.Bacon'sHenry VII.

Pride is undoubtedly the original of anger; but pride, like every other passion, if it once breaks loose from reason, counteracts its own purposes.

ANT  (ANT)   n.s.[æmett, Sax. which Junius imagines, not without probability, to have been first contracted to æmt, and then softened to ant.]An emmet; a pismire. A small insect that lives in great numbers together in hillocks.

The world cannot reward those qualities which are concealed from it

so easily is he praised, whom no man can envy.

ANACAMPTICK  (ANACA'MPTICK)   adj.[   or reflected: an anacamptick sound, an echo; an anacamptick hill, a hill that produces an echo.

Babies do not want to hear about babies; they like to be told of giants and castles.

ANACEPHALÆOSIS  (ANACEPHALÆO'SIS)   n.s.[   or summary of the principal heads of a discourse.Dict.

Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything. It is much easier to steal one hundred pounds than to get it by labour or any other way.

ALTERNATIVE  (ALTE'RNATIVE)   n.s.[alternatif, Fr.]The choice given of two things; so that if one be rejected, the other must be taken.

ANACHORETE  (ANA'CHORETE)  ANACHORITE  (ANA'CHORITE)  n.s.[sometimes viciously writen  anchorite;Greek] A monk, who, with the leave of his superiour, leaves the convent for a more austere and solitary life. Yet lies not love dead here, but here doth sit,Vow'd to this trench, like an  anachorite. Donne.

He that has collected his knowledge in solitude must learn its application by mixing with mankind.

It has been, from age to age, an affectation to love the pleasure of solitude, among those who cannot possibly be supposed qualified for passing life in that manner.Spectator,No 264.

Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away.

ALLEGER  (ALLE'GER)   n.s.[from allege.]He that alleges. Which narrative, if we may believe it as confidently as the famous alleger of it, Pamphilio, appears to do, would seem to argue, that there is, sometimes, no other principle requisite, than what may result from the lucky mixture of the parts of several bodies.Boyle.

To fix the thoughts by writing, and subject them to frequent examinations and reviews, is the best method of enabling the mind to detect its own sophisms, and keep it on guard against the fallacies which it practises on others: in conversation we naturally diffuse our thoughts, and in writing we contract them; method is the excellence of writing, and unconstraint the grace of conversation. To read, write, and converse in due proportions is, therefore, the business of a man of letters.

Some men there are love not a gaping pig;Some that are mad if they behold a cat;And others, when the bag-pipe sings i' th' nose,Cannot contain their urine, for affection.Shakesp.Merchant of Venice.2. Passion

It is very unfair in any writer to employ ignorance and malice together; because it gives his answerer double work.Swift.

Catechism.3. Recovery of health. Your honour's players hearing your amendment,Are come to play a pleasant comedy.Shakesp.Tam. Shrew.

It has always been the practice of mankind to judge of actions by the event. The same attempts, conducted in the same manner, but terminated by different success, produce different judgments: they who attain their wishes never want celebrators of their wisdom and their virtue; and they that miscarry are quickly discovered to have been defective not only in mental but in moral qualities. [...] he that fails in his endeavours after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.

State of the mind, in general. There grows,In my most ill compos'd affection, such  A stanchless avarice, that, were I king,I should cut off the nobles for their lands.Shak.Macbeth. The man that hath no musick in himself,Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;The motions of his spirit are dull as night,And his affections dark as Erebus:Let no such man be trusted.Shakesp.Merchant of Venice.6. Quality;

I found our speech copious without order, and energetick without rules: wherever I turned my view, there was perplexity to be disentangled, and confusion to be regulated.

He for a considerable time used to frequent the Green Room, and seemed to take delight in dissipating his gloom, by mixing in the sprightly chit-chat of the motley circle then to be found there. Mr. David Hume related to me from Mr. Garrick, that Johnson at last denied himself this amusement, from considerations of rigid virtue; saying, 'I'll come no more behind your scenes, David; for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities.