Quote #56
No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.
Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.
More from Samuel Johnson
- Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.
- That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?
- No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.
- The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.
- No man is much pleased with a companion, who does not increase, in some respect, his fondness for himself.
- Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore equall…
- Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
- But, perhaps, the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehensio…