Wit and Wisdom of Samuel Johnson

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Clarendon Press, 1888 - 323 pages

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Page 34 - The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.
Page 34 - 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 133 - 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 33 - 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 233 - 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 21 - 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 153 - 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 132 - 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 261 - 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 96 - 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...

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