Quotes from Samuel Johnson

So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.

Age looks with anger on the temerity of youth, and youth with contempt on the scrupulosity of age.

All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.

Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.

Assertion is not argument; to contradict the statement of an opponent is not proof that you are correct.

I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.

All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance.

Human reason borrowed many arts from the instinct of animals.

The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing.

Whisky making is the art of making poison pleasant

Quack: A boastful pretender to arts which he does not understand. A vain boastful pretender to physick; An artful, tricking practitioner in physick.

Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.

The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers.

I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of.

What is the reason that women servants ... have much lower wages than men servants ... when in fact our female house servants work much harder than the male?

Faults and defects every work of man must have.

It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharge of any profession.

There should be a stated day for commemorating the birthday of our Savior, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected.

Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.

A translator is to be like his author; it is not his business to excel him.

To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire and answer inquiries, is the business of the scholar

I am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice.

Exert your talents, and distinguish yourself, and don't think of retiring from the world, until the world will be sorry that you retire.