More from Samuel Johnson

  1. If the man who turnips cries, Cry not when his father dies, 'Tis a proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father.
  2. The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.
  3. There is in this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality), but exchange of ideas in conversation.
  4. The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.
  5. It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them.
  6. Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
  7. His [David Garrick's] death has eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.
  8. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him …

All Samuel Johnson quotes