Lexicographers

"As writer and critic, then, he is still interesting. Nevertheless, it is true that Johnson's chief hold over our minds is as a moral hero, a great personal example. With all his faults and foibles, he lived a brave and unselfish life. Starting with every handicap—bad sight, poor health, no money, an uncouth appearance and uncontrollable nervous habits—he fought his way up to recognition as one of the great men of his time. Once there, he made no effort to turn his reputation to worldly advantage in pursuit of money or power; he gave away most of what he earned, keeping back only enough to supply his basic needs, and filled his house with a crowd of peevish old creatures who could not look after themselves. All this was visible to the world. But the real heroism of Johnson's life lay in his unceasing struggle against the darkness within his own mind. Physically he never knew fear, but on another level he was haunted by neurotic guilt and the dread of eternal punishment."

"Conviviality, even "buffoonery", were one side of Johnson; neurotic dread and melancholia were another; the strong, rapid play of a masterly intelligence was a third. But none of these quite explains the reverence in which he was held. As Johnson lay dying, Fanny Burney sat for hours in tears on the stairs leading up to his room, hoping that she might be called in to receive his blessing. No mere John Bull, intellectual or otherwise, inspires that kind of devotion. Johnson had a greatness of mind, a tragic and heroic stature, that we can feel across two hundred and fifty years."

"Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves."

"Of all the Griefs that harrass the Distrest, Sure the most bitter is a scornful Jest"

"This mournful truth is ev'rywhere confessed — Slow rises worth, by poverty depressed."

"Unmoved though Witlings sneer and Rivals rail, Studious to please, yet not ashamed to fail. He scorns the meek address, the suppliant strain. With merit needless, and without it vain. In Reason, Nature, Truth, he dares to trust: Ye Fops, be silent: and ye Wits, be just."

"A thousand horrid Prodigies foretold it. A feeble government, eluded Laws, A factious Populace, luxurious Nobles, And all the maladies of stinking states."

"To-morrow's action! Can that hoary wisdom, Borne down with years, still doat upon tomorrow! That fatal mistress of the young, the lazy, The coward, and the fool, condemn'd to lose A useless life in waiting for to-morrow, To gaze with longing eyes upon to-morrow, Till interposing death destroys the prospect Strange! that this general fraud from day to day Should fill the world with wretches undetected. The soldier, labouring through a winter's march, Still sees to-morrow drest in robes of triumph; Still to the lover's long-expecting arms To-morrow brings the visionary bride. But thou, too old to hear another cheat, Learn, that the present hour alone is man's."

"There Poetry shall tune her sacred voice, And wake from ignorance the Western World."

"To neglect at any time preparation for death, is to sleep on our post at a siege, but to omit it in old age, is to sleep at an attack."

"[S]uch is the delight of mental superiority, that none on whom nature or study have conferred it, would purchase the gifts of fortune by its loss."

"It is always observable that silence propagates itself, and that the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find any thing to say."

"The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life."

"Liberty is, to the lowest rank of every nation, little more than the choice of working or starving."

"[T]hey who complain, in peace, of the insolence of the populace, must remember, that their insolence in peace is bravery in war."

"Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little."

"Resolve to spend a certain number of hours every day amongst your books."

"I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to be right."

"The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it."

"Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings."

"That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona."

"There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good."

"There is one writer, and, perhaps, many who do not write, to whom the contraction of these pernicious privileges appears very dangerous, and who startle at the thoughts of England free, and America in chains. Children fly from their own shadow, and rhetoricians are frighted by their own voices. Chains is, undoubtedly, a dreadful word; but, perhaps, the masters of civil wisdom may discover some gradations between chains and anarchy. Chains need not be put upon those who will be restrained without them. This contest may end in the softer phrase of English superiority and American obedience. We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?"

"There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow; but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved."

"I am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those they provoke."

"O Lord, my Maker and Protector, who hast graciously sent me into this world, to work out my salvation, enable me to drive from me all such unquiet and perplexing thoughts as may mislead or hinder me in the practice of those duties which thou hast required. When I behold the works of thy hands and consider the course of thy providence, give me Grace always to remember that thy thoughts are not my thoughts, nor thy ways my ways. And while it shall please Thee to continue me in this world where much is to be done and little to be known, teach me by thy Holy Spirit to withdraw my mind from unprofitable and dangerous enquiries, from difficulties vainly curious, and doubts impossible to be solved. Let me rejoice in the light which thou hast imparted, let me serve thee with active zeal, and humble confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest, shall be satisfied with knowledge."

"Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment."

"Here closed in death th' attentive eyes That saw the manners in the face."

"Catch then, O! catch the transient hour, Improve each moment as it flies; Life's a short Summer — man a flower, He dies — alas! how soon he dies!"

"He who praises everybody praises nobody."

"Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all."

"Fly fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other."

"Round numbers are always false."

"I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read."

"A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek."

"Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult."

"Ignorance in other men may be censured as idleness, in an academick it must be abhorred as treachery."

"He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man."

"From Thee, great God: we spring, to Thee we tend, Path, motive, guide, original, and end."

"Let me rejoice in the light which Thou hast imparted; let me serve Thee with active zeal, humbled confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest shall be satisfied with knowledge."

"A desire for knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being, whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all he has to get knowledge."

"It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world."

"The richest author that ever grazed the common of literature."

"There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity."

"The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove."

"When learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes First reared the stage, immortal Shakespeare rose; Each change of many-colored life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new: Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, And panting Time toiled after him in vain."

"Cold approbation gave the ling'ring bays, For those who durst not censure, scarce could praise."

"Declamation roared, while Passion slept."

"Ah! let not Censure term our fate our choice, The stage but echoes back the public's voice; The drama's laws the drama's patrons give, For we that live to please must please to live."

"Let observation with extensive view Survey mankind, from China to Peru."