Wit and Wisdom of Samuel Johnson, Volume 1 |
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Common terms and phrases
action affectation appearance attention become believe BOSWELL Boswell's called character common consider contempt continue conversation danger death delight desire dreadful easily endeavour equally evil expected fear feel give greater hand happiness hear hope human Idler ignorance imagination inclination interest kind knowledge known labour language learning less Letters live look lost mankind means mind misery moral nature necessary never observed once opinion ourselves pain pass passions perform perhaps Piozzi pleased pleasure praise present produced question Rambler reason regard rich Samuel Johnson seldom sense sometimes suffer suppose surely talk tell things thought thousand tion true truth turn understanding viii virtue Wisdom of Samuel wise wish Wit and Wisdom write
Popular passages
Page 43 - Is not a Patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help...
Page 156 - His virtues walked their narrow round, Nor made a pause, nor left a void ; And sure the eternal Master found The single talent well employ'd.
Page 42 - My Lord, I have been lately informed, by the proprietor of The World, that two papers, in which my Dictionary is recommended to the public, were written by your Lordship.
Page 288 - No, sir, there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced, as by a good tavern or inn.
Page 30 - I have often thought that there has rarely passed a life of which a judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful ; for not only every man has, in the mighty mass of the world, great numbers in the same condition with himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages, escapes and expedients, would be of immediate and apparent use ; but...
Page 176 - DISORDERS of intellect, answered Imlac, happen much more often than superficial observers will easily believe. Perhaps, if we speak with rigorous exactness, no human mind is in its right state. There is no man whose imagination does not sometimes predominate over his reason, who can regulate his attention wholly by his will, and whose ideas will come and go at his command.
Page 155 - Condemn'd to Hope's delusive mine, As on we toil from day to day, By sudden blasts, or slow decline, Our social comforts drop away. Well tried through many a varying year, See Levett to the grave descend ; Officious, innocent, sincere, Of every friendless name the friend. Yet still he fills Affection's eye, Obscurely wise and coarsely kind ; Nor...
Page 316 - When we see men grow old and die at a certain time one after another, from century to century, we laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the lexicographer be derided who, being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary nature and clear the world...
Page 119 - Imlac,) I will not undertake to maintain, against the concurrent and unvaried testimony of all ages, and of all nations. There is no people, rude or learned, among whom apparitions of the dead are not related and believed. This opinion, which prevails as far as human nature is diffused, could become universal only by its truth...
Page 168 - The freaks, and humours, and spleen, and vanity of women, as they embroil families in discord, and fill houses with disquiet, do more to obstruct the happiness of life in a year than the ambition of the clergy in many centuries.
Bibliographic information
| Title | Wit and Wisdom of Samuel Johnson, Volume 1 Wit and Wisdom of Samuel Johnson, George Birkbeck Norman Hill |
| Author | Samuel Johnson |
| Compiled by | George Birkbeck Norman Hill |
| Publisher | Clarendon Press, 1888 |
| Original from | Harvard University |
| Digitized | 11 Feb 2008 |
| Length | 323 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |