“Here's to the next insurrection of the negroes in the West Indies.”
September 23, 1777, p. 363
A toast made by Johnson, as Boswell states, "when in company with some very grave men at Oxford".
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III
“It might as well be said, "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat."”
In response to a line of a tragedy that went 'Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free." June 1784
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV
“With these celestial Wisdom calms the mind,
And makes the happiness she does not find.”
Zdroj: Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), Line 367
Zdroj: Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson (1786), p. 281
“Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay.”
Zdroj: Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Line added to Goldsmith's Deserted Village
1781, p. 479
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV
“He delighted to tread upon the brink of meaning.”
The Life of Dryden
Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)
“Round numbers are always false.”
Quoted in the "Apophthegms, Sentiments, Opinions and Occasional Reflections" of Sir John Hawkins (1787-1789) in Johnsonian Miscellanies (1897), vol. II, p. 2, edited by George Birkbeck Hill
“Of all the Griefs that harrass the Distrest,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful Jest”
London: A Poem (1738) http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/london2.html, lines 166–167
“Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things.”
Boulter's Monument. (Supposed to have been inserted by Dr. Johnson, 1745.)
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
Kearsley, 600
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Johnsoniana
“Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.”
Quoted in Anecdotes of Johnson by Hannah More in Johnsonian Miscellanies (1897), vol. II, p. 197, edited by George Birkbeck Hill. More had quoted this remark in a letter to her sister (April 1782)
Zdroj: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 1
“I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.”
Zdroj: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 26
“Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason.”
The Life of Milton
Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)
March 31, 1778, p. 372
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III