Quotes from Samuel Johnson

ANTHELMINTHICK  (ANTHELMI'NTHICK)   adj.[   against, and eklimho, a worm.]That which kills worms.

There have been men indeed splendidly wicked, whose endowments threw a brightness on their crimes, and whom  scarce any villany made perfectly detestable, because they never could be wholly divested of their excellencies; but such have been in all ages the great corrupters of the world, and their resemblance ought no more to be preserved, than the art of murdering without pain.

AFFLUENCE  (A'FFLUENCE)   n.s.[affluence, Fr. affluentia, Lat.]1. The act of flowing to any place; concourse. It is almost always used figuratively. I shall not relate the affluence of young nobles from hence into Spain, after the voice of our prince being there had been noised.Wotton.2. Exuberance

ANTHONY'S [only in 1755 edition] (A'NTHONY'S)  FIRE.n.s.A kind of erysipelas.   

To ABERUNCATE  (ABERU'NCATE)   v.a.[averunco, Lat.] To pull up by the roots; to extirpate utterly.Dict.

Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.

IRENE observes, 'That the Supreme Being will accept of virtue, whatever outward circumstances it may be accompanied with, and may be delighted with varieties of worship: but is answered, that variety cannot affect that Being, who, infinitely happy in his own perfections, wants no external gratifications; nor can infinite truth be delighted with falsehood; that though he may guide or pity those he leaves in darkness, he abandons those who shut their eyes against the beams of day.

When I survey my past life, I discover nothing but a barren waste of time, with disorders of the mind very near to madness.

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

ABEYANCE  (ABEY'ANCE)   n.s.[from the French aboyer, allatrare, to bark at.] This word, in Littleton, cap. Discontinuance, is thus used. The right of fee-simple lieth in abeyance, when

Some praise at morning what they blame at night,But always think the last opinion right.A muse by these is like a mistress us'd,This hour she's idoliz'd, the next abus'd.Pope'sEss. on Crit.

ABGREGATION  (ABGREGA'TION)   n.s.[abgregatio, Lat.] A separation from the flock.Dict.  

Ou is frequently used in the last syllable of words which in Latin end in or and are made English, as honour, labour, favour, from honor, labor, favor. Some late innovators have ejected the u, without considering that the last syllable gives the sound neither of or nor ur, but a sound between them, if not compounded of both; besides that they are probably derived to us from the French nouns in eur, as honeur, faveur.

ANES  (ANES)  AWNS  (AWNS)  n.s. The spires or beards of corn. Dict.

the fountain of content must spring up in the mind: and that he who has so little knowledge of human nature, as to seek happiness by changing any thing but his own dispositions, will waste his life in fruitless efforts, and multiply the griefs which he purposes to remove .

C might be omitted in the language without loss, since one of its sounds might be supplied by, s, and the other by k, but that it preserves to the eye the etymology of words, as face from facies, captive from captivus.

AMNICOLIST  (AMNI'COLIST)   n.s.[amnicola, Lat.] Inhabiting near a river.D.

The great direction which Burton has left to men disordered like you, is this: Be not solitary; be not idle—which I would thus modify: If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.

AMORT  (AMO'RT)   adv.[à la mort, Fr.]In the state of the dead; dejected; depressed; spiritless. How fares my Kate? what, sweeting, all amort?Shakespeare'sTaming of the Shrew.

Judgement, like other faculties, is improved by practice, and its advancement is hindered by submission to dictatorial decisions, as the memory grows torpid by the use of a table book.

C, according to English orthography, never ends a word; therefore we write stick, block, which were originally, sticke, blocke. In such words c is now mute.

This earl, like certain vegetables, did bud and open slowly; nature sometimes delighting to play an aftergame, as well as fortune, which had both their turns and tides in

In narration he affects a disproportionate pomp of diction and a wearisome train of circumlocution, and tells the incident imperfectly in many words, which might have been more plainly delivered in few.

ÆGILOPS  (Æ'GILOPS)   n.s.[Gr. signifying goat-eyed, the goat being subject to this ailment.] A tumour or swelling in the great corner of the eye, by the root of the nose, either with or without an inflammation: also a plant so called, for its supposed virtues