Quotes from Samuel Johnson

Ind the endless variety of tastes and circumstances that diversify mankind, nothing is so superfluous but that someone desires it; or so common but that someone is compelled to buy it.

Babies do not want to hear about babies; they like to be told of giants and castles.

ANACEPHALÆOSIS  (ANACEPHALÆO'SIS)   n.s.[   or summary of the principal heads of a discourse.Dict.

Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything. It is much easier to steal one hundred pounds than to get it by labour or any other way.

ALTERNATIVE  (ALTE'RNATIVE)   n.s.[alternatif, Fr.]The choice given of two things; so that if one be rejected, the other must be taken.

It has been, from age to age, an affectation to love the pleasure of solitude, among those who cannot possibly be supposed qualified for passing life in that manner.Spectator,No 264.

ALLEGER  (ALLE'GER)   n.s.[from allege.]He that alleges. Which narrative, if we may believe it as confidently as the famous alleger of it, Pamphilio, appears to do, would seem to argue, that there is, sometimes, no other principle requisite, than what may result from the lucky mixture of the parts of several bodies.Boyle.

State of the mind, in general. There grows,In my most ill compos'd affection, such  A stanchless avarice, that, were I king,I should cut off the nobles for their lands.Shak.Macbeth. The man that hath no musick in himself,Nor is not mov'd with concord of sweet sounds,Is fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils;The motions of his spirit are dull as night,And his affections dark as Erebus:Let no such man be trusted.Shakesp.Merchant of Venice.6. Quality;

Affection is the lively representment of any passion whatsoever, as if the figures stood not upon a cloth or board, but as if they were acting upon a stage.Wotton'sArchitecture.

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.

In Ireland they put their children to fosterers: the rich sell, the meaner sort buying the alterage of their children; and the reason is, because in the opinion of the people, fostering has always been a stronger alliance than blood.Sir John Davieson Ireland.   

It is too well known, that the second George never was an Augustus to learning or genius.