Quotes by Lexicographers - Page 2

There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable that I would not rather know it than not know it.
Samuel Johnson
A fishing-rod was a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.
Samuel Johnson
Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.
Samuel Johnson
The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it.
Samuel Johnson
It is unjust to claim the privileges of age and retain the playthings of childhood.
Samuel Johnson
Friendship is seldom lasting but between equals or where the superiority on one side is reduced by some equivalent advantage on the other.
Samuel Johnson
To hear complaints is wearisome to the wretched and the happy alike.
Samuel Johnson
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Samuel Johnson
The first years of man must make provision for the last.
Samuel Johnson
A lexicographer a writer of dictionaries a harmless drudge.
Samuel Johnson
Very few live by choice. Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight and with which he did not always willingly cooperate and therefore you will rarely meet one who does not think the lot of his neighbor better than his own.
Samuel Johnson
Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life . . . the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.
Samuel Johnson
I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.
Samuel Johnson
The responsibility of a dictionary is to record a language not set its style.
Phillip Babcock Gove
Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life and the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.
Samuel Johnson
Facts which were new to me were daily presenting themselves to my mind.
Noah Webster
He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
Samuel Johnson
The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.
Samuel Johnson
In a man's letters his soul lies naked.
Samuel Johnson
Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.
Samuel Johnson
Adversity has ever been considered as the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself being free from flatterers.
Samuel Johnson
[C]ourage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.
Samuel Johnson
Life is short. The sooner that a man begins to enjoy his wealth the better.
Samuel Johnson
It is foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend as upon the chastity of a wife.
Samuel Johnson
The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
Samuel Johnson
Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.
Samuel Johnson
The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow.
Samuel Johnson
It is better to live rich than to die rich.
Samuel Johnson
If the changes that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our constitution, let us make some struggles for our language.
Samuel Johnson
Stop thinking of yourself as a victim. You were a target that is now no longer being hit.
Thomas Sheridan
No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion, than the negligence with which men overlook their own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they pardon them, however frequently repeated.
Samuel Johnson
our triumphant age of plenty is riddled with darker feelings of doubt, cynicism, distrust, boredom and a strange kind of emptiness
Samuel Johnson
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.
Samuel Johnson
Hope is itself a species of happiness and perhaps the chief happiness which this world affords.
Samuel Johnson
Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
Samuel Johnson
Every other author may aspire to praise the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.
Samuel Johnson
Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye, and while we glide along the stream of time, whatever we leave behind us is always lessening, and that which we approach increasing in magnitude.
Samuel Johnson
The future is purchased by the present.
Samuel Johnson
Ignorance, when voluntary, is criminal, and a man may be properly charged with that evil which he neglected or refused to learn how to prevent.
Samuel Johnson
I look upon every day to be lost in which I do not make a new acquaintance.
Samuel Johnson
Claret is the liquor for boys port for men but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
Samuel Johnson
Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.
Samuel Johnson
Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.
Samuel Johnson
A man Sir should keep his friendship in constant repair.
Samuel Johnson
In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
Samuel Johnson
In selecting men for office, let principle be your guide. Regard not the particular sect or denomination of the candidate - look to his character.
Noah Webster
No man is much pleased with a companion who does not increase in some respect his fondness of himself.
Samuel Johnson
Such is the state of life that none are happy but by the anticipation of change. The change itself is nothing. When we have made it the next wish is to change again.
Samuel Johnson
The best way to make something last is to believe that it won't.
Barbara Ann Kipfer
Life is a progress from want to want not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
Samuel Johnson
Present opportunities are neglected and attainable good is slighted by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages.
Samuel Johnson
Language as well as the faculty of speech was the immediate gift of God.
Noah Webster
The man who is asked by an author what he thinks of his work is put to the torture and is not obliged to speak the truth.
Samuel Johnson
If the man who turnips cries Cry not when his father dies 'Tis proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father.
Samuel Johnson
Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome." -
Samuel Johnson
In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
Samuel Johnson
I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him you have no business with consequences you are to tell the truth.
Samuel Johnson
I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.
Samuel Johnson
I am not yet so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth and that things are the sons of heaven.
Samuel Johnson
It is common to overlook what is near by keeping the eye fixed on something remote.
Samuel Johnson