Quote #65
EXCISE - A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.
More from Samuel Johnson
- ESSAY - A loose sally of the mind; an irregular indigested piece; not a regular and orderly composition.
- GRUBSTREET - The name of a street near Moorsfield, London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems.
- CLUB - An assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions.
- LEXICOGRAPHER - A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.
- 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.
- NETWORK - Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.
- Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.
- OATS - A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.