Samuel Johnson Quotes

Angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.

Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he doesn't possess.

The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!

Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible. [on hearing a famous violinist]

Hope is itself a species of happiness, and perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.

The distance is commonly very great between actual performances and speculative possibility. It is natural to suppose, that as much as has been done to-day may be done to-morrow; but on the morrow some difficulty emerges or some external impediment obstructs. Indolence, interruption, business, and pleasure; all take their turns of retardation; and every long work is lengthened by a thousand causes that can, and ten thousand that cannot, be recounted. Perhaps no extensive and multifarious performance was ever effected within the term originally fixed in the undertaker's mind. He that runs against Time, has an antagonist not subject to casualties.

From Samuel Johnson's Lives of the Poets series, published in 3 volumes between 1779 and 1781, on Alexander Pope

Let Observation with extensive View,
Survey Mankind, from China to Peru;
Remark each anxious Toil, each eager strife,
And watch the busy Scenes of crowded Life;
Then say how Hope and Fear, Desire and Hate,
O'erspread with Snares the clouded Maze of Fate,
Where wav'ring Man, betray'd by vent'rous Pride,
To tread the dreary Paths without a Guide;
As treach'rous Phantoms in the Mist delude,
Shuns fancied Ills, or chases airy Good.
How rarely Reason guides the stubborn Choice,
Rules the bold Hand, or prompts the suppliant Voice,
How Nations sink, by darling Schemes oppress'd,
When Vengeance listens to the Fool's Request.
Fate wings with ev'ry Wish th' afflictive Dart,
Each Gift of Nature, each Grace of Art,
With fatal Heat impetuous Courage glows,
With fatal Sweetness Elocution flows,
Impeachment stops the Speaker's pow'rful Breath,
And restless Fire precipitates on Death.

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

His comedy pleases by the thoughts and the language, and his tragedy for the greater part by incident and action. His tragedy seems to be skill, his comedy to be instinct.

Enquirer, cease, Petitions yet remain,
Which Heav'n may hear, nor deem Religion vain.
Still raise for Good the supplicating Voice,
But leave to Heav'n the Measure and the Choice.

Shakespeare has united the powers of exciting laughter and sorrow not only in one mind, but in one composition.

Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken, themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.

Network: Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections [....]

Reticulated: Made of network; formed with interstitial vacuities.

The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.

Novel: A small tale, generally of love.