Quote #57

That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?

Attribution disputed; shown as originally published.

More from Samuel Johnson

  1. No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.
  2. The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.
  3. Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.
  4. Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore equall…
  5. No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.
  6. But, perhaps, the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehensio…
  7. No man is much pleased with a companion, who does not increase, in some respect, his fondness for himself.
  8. Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.

All Samuel Johnson quotes