Quotes from Samuel Johnson

Addison writes with the ease of a gentleman. His readers fancy that a wise and accomplished companion is talking to them; so that he insinuates his sentiments and taste into their minds by an imperceptible influence. Johnson writes like a teacher. He dictates to his readers as if from an academical chair. They attend with awe and admiration; and his precepts are impressed upon them by his commanding eloquence.

ABYSM  (ABY'SM)   n.s.[abysme, old Fr. now written contractedly abîme.]A gulf; the same with abyss. My good stars, that were my former guides,Have empty left their orbs, and shot their firesInto the abysm of hell.Shakespeare'sAntony and Cleopatra.

Hector hastened to relieve his boy;Dismiss'd his burnish'd helm that shone afar,The pride of warriours, and the pomp of war.Dryd.3. From

ACATALECTIC  (ACATALE'CTIC)   n.s.[  Gr.]A verse which has the compleat number of syllables, without defect or superfluity.

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. It becomes cheap as it becomes vulgar, and will no longer raise expectation or animate enterprise.

His genius was belowThe skill of ev'ry common beau;Who, tho' he cannot spell, is wiseEnough to read a lady's eyes;And will each accidental glanceInterpret for a kind advance.Swift'sMiscell.

Odes were the compositions in which he took most delight, and it was long before he liked his Epistles and Satires. He told me what he read solidly at Oxford was Greek; not the Grecian historians, but Homer and Euripides, and now and then a little Epigram; that the study of which he was the most fond was Metaphysicks, but he had not read much, even in that way.

The cherubim were never intended as an object of worship, because they were only the appendices to another thing. But a thing is then proposed as an object of worship, when it is set up by itself, and not by way of addition or ornament to another thing.Stillingfleet'sDefence of Discourses on Romish Idolatry.

Those who take little thought find it easy to pronounce an opinion. - On Optimism

ADAMANT  (A'DAMANT)   n.s.[adamas, Lat. from Gr. that is, insuperable, infrangible.]1. A stone, imagined by writers, of impenetrable hardness. So great a fear my name amongst them

APOPHASIS  (APO'PHASIS)   n.s.[Lat.    a denying.] A figure in rhetorick, by which the orator, speaking ironically, seems to wave what he would plainly insinuate; as, Neither will I mention those things, which if I should, you notwithstanding could neither confute or speak against them.Smith'sRhetorick.

To ACCEND  (ACCE'ND)   v.a.[accendo, Lat.]To kindle, to set on fire; a word very rarely used. Our devotion, if sufficiently accended, would, as theirs, burn up innumerable books of this sort.Decay of Piety.