The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (240 page)
Read The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Online
Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
great.
of Thomas Gray
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 28 March 1775
Fleet-street has a very animated appearance; but I think the full tide of human existence is at Charing-Cross.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 2 April 1775
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 7 April 1775
Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 18 April 1775
In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 1775
We would all be idle if we could.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 1776
No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 5 April 1776
boswell
: Sir, what is poetry?
johnson
: Why Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all
know
what light is; but it is not easy to
tell
what it is.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 12 April 1776
If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 19 September 1777
Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
on the execution of Dr Dodd for forgery, 27 June 1777
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 19 September 1777
When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 20 September 1777
All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.
of the existence of ghosts
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 31 March 1778
Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 10 April 1778
Johnson had said that he could repeat a complete chapter of "The Natural History of Iceland", from the Danish of Horrebow, the whole of which was exactly thus:—"
chap. lxxii
.
Concerning snakes
. There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole island."
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 13 April 1778
Sir, the insolence of wealth will creep out.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 18 April 1778
Were it not for imagination, Sir, a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a Duchess.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 9 May 1778
Claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men; but he who aspires to be a hero (smiling) must drink brandy.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 7 April 1779
Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see.
on the Giant's Causeway
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 12 October 1779
They are forced plants, raised in a hot-bed; and they are poor plants; they are but cucumbers after all.
of Thomas Gray's Odes
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 1780
No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.
of Oliver Goldsmith
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 1780.
This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) March 1781
We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich, beyond the dreams of avarice.
at the sale of Thrale's brewery
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 6 April 1781.
Classical quotation is the
parole
of literary men all over the world.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 8 May 1781
Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) letter to Boswell, 7 December 1782
How few of his friends' houses would a man choose to be at when he is sick.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 1783
There is a wicked inclination in most people to suppose an old man decayed in his intellects. If a young or middle-aged man, when leaving a company, does not recollect where he laid his hat, it is nothing; but if the same inattention is discovered in an old man, people will shrug up their shoulders, and say, "His memory is going."
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 1783
Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea.
on the relative merits of two minor poets
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 1783
When I observed he was a fine cat, saying, "Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this"; and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, "but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed."
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 1783
Clear your mind of cant.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 15 May 1783
The black dog I hope always to resist, and in time to drive, though I am deprived of almost all those that used to help me…When I rise my breakfast is solitary, the black dog waits to share it, from breakfast to dinner he continues barking, except that Dr Brocklesby for a little keeps him at a distance…Night comes at last, and some hours of restlessness and confusion bring me again to a day of solitude. What shall exclude the black dog from a habitation like this?
on his attacks of melancholia; more recently associated with Winston Churchill, who used the phrase "black dog" when alluding to his own periodic bouts of depression
letter to Mrs Thrale, 28 June 1783
Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.
to Hannah More, who had expressed a wonder that the poet who had written Paradise Lost should write such poor sonnets
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 13 June 1784
It might as well be said "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat."
parodying Henry Brooke
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) June 1784.
Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
letter to Francesco Sastres, 21 August 1784
Sir, I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) November 1784
Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible.
on the performance of a celebrated violinist
William Seward
Supplement to the Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons
(1797)
A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.
John Hawkins (ed.)
The Works of Samuel Johnson
(1787) "Apophthegms, Sentiments, Opinions, etc." vol. 11
Of music Dr Johnson used to say that it was the only sensual pleasure without vice.
in
European Magazine
(1795)
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
William Seward
Biographia
(1799)
