"Samuel Johnson" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in dungeons, from the light and sympathy of the world; because Thomas Clarkson, animated by the spirit of its teachings, consecrated wealth, luxury, and the quiet of an entire lifetime on the altar of voluntary sacrifice for the salvation of an alien people; because Samuel Johnson, shut out from mirthfulness by disease and suffering, and endowed with an intellectual pride intolerant of froward ignorance, was, through the chastening power of that belief, transformed into the cheerful minister ...
— West Indian Fables by James Anthony Froude Explained by J. J. Thomas • J. J. (John Jacob) Thomas
... ballads. Here it seems only necessary to remark that there was not apparently any time in his career at which he began to think seriously of appearing before the public as a poet. Such was the intention early in their career with many of our best known prose writers, with Milton, and Goldsmith, and Samuel Johnson, with Scott, Macaulay, and more lately with Matthew Arnold; writers of verse and prose who ultimately prevailed some in one direction, and others in the other. Milton and Goldsmith have been known best as poets, Johnson and Macaulay as writers of prose. But with all of them there has been a distinct ...
— Thackeray • Anthony Trollope
... proceeded to his library, brought me a Dr. Johnson, and overwhelmed me with a definition. Shade of the immortal Shakespeare! I imagine to myself the scowl of your spiritual eye upon the profanity of that scurrilous Ursa Major. Think of poetry, dear B-, think of poetry, and then think of Dr. Samuel Johnson! Think of all that is airy and fairy-like, and then of all that is hideous and unwieldy; think of his huge bulk, the Elephant! and then-and then think of the 'Tempest'—the 'Midsummer-Night's ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... Parliament The Attainder of Russell reversed Other Attainders reversed; Case of Samuel Johnson Case of Devonshire Case of Oates Bill of Rights Disputes about a Bill of Indemnity Last Days of Jeffreys The Whigs dissatisfied with the King Intemperance of Howe Attack on Caermarthen Attack on Halifax ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... younger, as the head of the house, received the Doctor at his door, and with respectful attention supported him into the house. A comfortable parlour with a good fire was appropriated to the guests, and the "dram" went round. Presently supper was served, and then Flora made her appearance. "To see Dr. Samuel Johnson, the great champion of the English Tories, salute Miss Flora Macdonald in the isle of Skye, was," as Boswell observes, "a striking sight." In their notions Flora and the Doctor were in many respects congenial; and Dr. Johnson not only had imbibed a high ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745 - Volume III. • Mrs. Thomson
... well say so," answered the cattle-drover. "Why, that's the famous Doctor Samuel Johnson, who they say is the greatest and learnedest man in England. I saw him in London streets, walking with ...
— Biographical Stories - (From: "True Stories of History and Biography") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... Jesus Christ, stoned Stephen, hooted Paul for a madman, tried Luther for a criminal, tortured Galileo, bound Columbus in chains, drove Dante into a hell of exile, made Shakespeare write the sonnet, 'When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes', gave Milton five pounds for 'Paradise Lost', kept Samuel Johnson cooling his heels on Lord Chesterfield's doorstep, reviled Shelley as an unclean dog, killed Keats, cracked jokes on Glueck, Schubert, Beethoven, Berlioz, and Wagner, and committed so many other impious follies and stupidities ...
— The Poems of Sidney Lanier • Sidney Lanier
... she became the mistress of Hector Merlin. [A Distinguished Provincial at Paris. A Bachelor's Establishment.] After having been maintained by Jacques Falleix, the broker who failed, she was for a short time in 1830 mistress of Peyrade who was concealed under the name of Samuel Johnson, "the nabob." She was acquainted with Esther Gobseck, who lived on rue Saint-Georges in a mansion that had been fitted up for her—Suzanne —by Falleix, and obtained by Nucingen for Esther. [Scenes in a Courtesan's Life.] In 1838 she ...
— Repertory Of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z • Anatole Cerfberr and Jules Franois Christophe
... was only 2d., a sum which has been immortalized by Samuel Johnson's famous retort on his tutor: 'Sir, you have sconced me 2d. for non-attendance at a lecture not worth ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells
... declare whence it came and whither it was going. I confess, I too, for the sake of my country, would wish that every word we use might be compelled to show its passport, attested by our great lawgiver, Dr. Samuel Johnson." ...
— Marriage • Susan Edmonstone Ferrier
... Dictionary—the interesting work which she invariably presented to her scholars, on their departure from the Mall. On the cover was inserted a copy of "Lines addressed to a young lady on quitting Miss Pinkerton's school, at the Mall; by the late revered Doctor Samuel Johnson." In fact, the Lexicographer's name was always on the lips of this majestic woman, and a visit he had paid to her was the cause of her reputation ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... exclaimed the other solemnly; 'I entreat you, sir, to do nothing rash! Take heart, sir! Think of Samuel Johnson, think of Goldsmith—' ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... has been celebrated in song and romance. Of Vogelwied, the Minnesinger, and his bequest to the birds. Of the English Quaker, visited, wherever he went, by flocks of birds, who with cries of joy alighted on his broad-brimmed hat and his drab coat-sleeves. Of old Samuel Johnson, when half-blind and infirm, groping abroad of an evening for oysters for his cat. Of Walter Scott and John Brown, of Edinburgh, and their dogs. Of our own Thoreau, instinctively recognized by bird and beast as a friend. Emerson says ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... improved in various ways; but these benefits are incidental, like the invigoration which comes from a mountain walk. It is not for the sake of the exercise that we set out; but for the sake of the view. The view from the mountain which is Samuel Johnson is so familiar, and has been so constantly analysed and admired, that further description would be superfluous. It is sufficient for us to recognise that he is a mountain, and to pay all the reverence that is due. In one of Emerson's poems a mountain and a squirrel ...
— Books and Characters - French and English • Lytton Strachey
... consisted of General Sheridan, Lawrence R. Jerome, James Gordon Bennett, of the New York Herald; Leonard W. Jerome, Carroll Livingston, Major J.G. Hecksher, General Fitzhugh, General H.E. Davies, Captain M. Edward Rogers, Colonel J. Scuyler Crosby, Samuel Johnson, General Anson Stager, of the Western Union Telegraph Company; Charles Wilson, editor of the Chicago Evening Journal; General Rucker, Quartermaster-General, and Dr. Asch—the two last-named being of General Sheridan's ...
— The Life of Hon. William F. Cody - Known as Buffalo Bill The Famous Hunter, Scout and Guide • William F. Cody
... evils. It is true that an acquaintance with a number of dead languages, with Roman and Grecian antiquities, with the subtleties of metaphysics, with pagan mythology, and with politics and poetry, may coexist with these superstitions, as was true in the case of the late Dr. Samuel Johnson, who believed in ghosts and in the second sight. However important in other respects these departments of an extensive and varied education may be, they do not form an effectual barrier against the admission of superstitious opinions. In order to do this, the mind must be directed ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... away, and to adopt a style in which she could attain excellence only by achieving an almost miraculous victory over nature and over habit. She could cease to be Fanny Burney; it was not so easy to become Samuel Johnson. ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... sisters, and one brother, all of whom died in infancy, except her second sister, Sarah. She, almost on the eve of marriage in her nineteenth year, to Mr. Porter, brother to Mrs. Lucy Porter of Lichfield, and son-in-law to Dr. Samuel Johnson, died in June, 1764. She is ...
— Anna Seward - and Classic Lichfield • Stapleton Martin
... planned his history "on the scale of an ordnance map." He did what a German professor does when he tries to fathom English society by studying the Times newspaper day by day. The enormous mass of detail, the infinitesimal minuteness of view, beat him. As he complained about Samuel Johnson, he runs into "big words about little things." Charles's mistress, her pug-dog, the page-boy who tended the dog, nay, the boy's putative father, occupy the foreground: and the poet, the statesman, and the hero retire into the middle distance or the ...
— Studies in Early Victorian Literature • Frederic Harrison
... England has no monument to Shakespeare he now has the freedom of Elysium; while the present address of the British worthies who have battened and fattened on poor humanity's thirst for strong drink, since Samuel Johnson was executor of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Vol. 1 of 14 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Good Men and Great • Elbert Hubbard
... Samuel Johnson once rolled into a London bookseller's shop to ask for literary employment. The bookseller scrutinized his burly frame, enormous hands, coarse face, and ...
— The Love Affairs of a Bibliomaniac • Eugene Field
... dedications, Samuel Johnson was the giant of his time. He once said to Boswell, the subject arising at a dinner-party, "Why, I have dedicated to the royal family all round,"—and the honest chronicler proves that ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.02.23 • Various
... Quickly, the alewife; for Hamlet, the philosopher; and for Bottom, the weaver. To employ so many styles requires genius of a peculiar kind. In the case of most of us, our style would soon betray our individuality. When Dr. Samuel Johnson tried to write a drama, he made all his little fishes talk like whales, as Goldsmith ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... temperance or even of extreme abstinence, that some of those men who have done most work in their day—John Howard, Wesley, and Cobbett, for example—have been either very moderate, or decidedly abstemious. But on the other hand, such men as Samuel Johnson, who was a free liver and glutton, and Thackeray, who drank to excess, have also got through a ...
— Study and Stimulants • A. Arthur Reade
... pleasure to think that you have obtained the friendship of Mr. Samuel Johnson. He is one of the best moral writers which England has produced. At the same time, I envy you the free and undisguised converse with such a man. May I beg you to present my best respects to him, and to assure him of the veneration which ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... containing the following singular passage:—"I think myself happy to have this day the honour of endeavouring to do honour to the memory of Thomson, which has been profanely touched by the rude hand of Samuel Johnson: whose fame and reputation indicate the decline of taste in a country that, after having produced an Alfred, a Wallace, a Bacon, a Napier, a Newton, a Buchanan, a Milton, a Hampden, a Fletcher, and a Thomson, can submit to be bullied by an ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... notably by joining a little club of young men who met on certain evenings at an inn for discussion and mutual improvement. To this little society Crabbe was to owe one chief happiness of his life. One of its members, Mr. W.S. Levett, a surgeon (one wonders if a relative of Samuel Johnson's protege), was at this time courting a Miss Brereton, of Framlingham, ten miles away. Mr. Levett died young in 1774, and did not live to marry, but during his brief friendship with Crabbe was the means of introducing him to the lady who, ...
— Crabbe, (George) - English Men of Letters Series • Alfred Ainger
... for using a dropper fly is not to offer the trout two counterfeit insects differing in shape or color; as commonly attached to the leader, the dropper swims with the tail fly. "Sir," said the Great Neal, in the manner of Samuel Johnson, "when the dropper is properly attached, as I attach it, two aspects of the lure are presented to the fish, the one fly moving through the water, the other dancing an inch or so above. This, Sir, is how ...
— The So-called Human Race • Bert Leston Taylor
... everybody's business but their own, believing in witches, and ghosts, and horseshoes to keep the devil out of the churn, and by a godless life setting their children on the very verge of hell. The mothers of Samuel Johnson, and of Alfred the Great, and Isaac Newton, and of St. Augustine, and of Richard Cecil, and of President Edwards, for the most part ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... first considerable book was a lively description of his tour in Corsica, but his fame rests on his "Life of Dr. Johnson" (see LIVES AND LETTERS), and his "Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johnson, LL.D." was really the first portion of that great work, and was meant, as he himself said, "to delineate Dr. Johnson's manners and character" more than to give any detailed descriptions of scenery. We have chosen ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... hands and stamped its feet in honor of Charles Lamb; but what does he say? "I walk up and down, thinking I am happy, but feeling I am not." Call the roll, and be quick about it. Samuel Johnson, the learned! Happy? "No. I am afraid I shall some day get crazy." William Hazlitt, the great essayist! Happy? "No. I have been for two hours and a half going up and down Paternoster Row with a volcano in my breast." ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... titles, or gazed at the photograph of Mary; of despair as he had taken off his belt and counted out his rapidly-decreasing stock of money, or reflected that he was as far from completing his novel as ever. Sometimes in the search for an idea he had frequented the restaurants where the great Samuel Johnson himself had eaten, and sometimes he had frequented other restaurants where even the great Samuel Johnson himself had been unable to eat. Often he had gone into the British Museum and leant against a mummy-case, or taken a 'bus to Chelsea and pressed his forehead against the ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... suffragettes of Bryn Mawr—an enterprise as stimulating (and as intelligible) as that of setting off fire-works in a blind asylum. Phelps sits in a chair at Yale. Boynton is a master of arts in English literature, whatever that may mean. Brownell is both L.H.D. and Litt.D., thus surpassing Samuel Johnson by one point, and Hazlitt, Coleridge and Malone by two. But the learning of these august umbilicarii, for all its pretensions, is precisely the sterile, foppish sort one looks for in second-rate college professors. ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken |
