The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations (239 page)
Read The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Online
Authors: Elizabeth Knowles
1866–1939
Cheer up! the worst is yet to come!
in
Everybody's Magazine
May 1920
1906–
Architecture is the art of how to waste space.
New York Times
27 December 1964
1709–84
Change is not made without inconvenience, even from worse to better.
A Dictionary of the English Language
(1755) preface.
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. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.
A Dictionary of the English Language
(1755) preface.
But these were the dreams of a poet doomed at last to wake a lexicographer.
A Dictionary of the English Language
(1755) preface
Lexicographer
. A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.
A Dictionary of the English Language
(1755)
Network
. Anything reticulated or decussated at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.
A Dictionary of the English Language
(1755)
Oats
. A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.
A Dictionary of the English Language
(1755)
Patron
. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.
A Dictionary of the English Language
(1755)
Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.
in
The Idler
no. 30 (11 November 1758)
Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.
The Idler
no. 40 (20 January 1759)
Language is the dress of thought.
Lives of the English Poets
(1779–81) "Cowley"
The father of English criticism.
Lives of the English Poets
(1779–81) "Dryden"
I am disappointed by that stroke of death, which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.
on the death of Garrick
Lives of the English Poets
(1779–81) "Edmund Smith"
I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to be right.
Plays of William Shakespeare…
(1765) preface
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes, than a public library.
in
The Rambler
no. 106 (23 March 1751)
He [the poet] must write as the interpreter of nature, and the legislator of mankind.
Rasselas
(1759) ch. 10.
Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.
Rasselas
(1759) ch. 11
Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.
Rasselas
(1759) ch. 26
Example is always more efficacious than precept.
Rasselas
(1759) ch. 30
I consider this mighty structure as a monument of the insufficiency of human enjoyments.
of the Pyramids
Rasselas
(1759) ch. 32
How small of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.
Still to ourselves in every place consigned,
Our own felicity we make or find.
lines added to Oliver Goldsmith's
The Traveller
(1764) l. 429.
Let observation with extensive view,
Survey mankind, from China to Peru.
The Vanity of Human Wishes
(1749) l. 1
A frame of adamant, a soul of fire,
No dangers fright him, and no labours tire.
of Charles XII of Sweden
The Vanity of Human Wishes
(1749) l. 193
He left the name, at which the world grew pale,
To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
of Charles XII of Sweden
The Vanity of Human Wishes
(1749) l. 221
Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know,
That life protracted is protracted woe.
The Vanity of Human Wishes
(1749) l. 257
Still raise for good the supplicating voice,
But leave to heaven the measure and the choice.
The Vanity of Human Wishes
(1749) l. 351
A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge.
James Boswell
Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
(1785) 15 August 1773
I inherited a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober.
James Boswell
Tour to the Hebrides
(1785) 16 September 1773.
I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigree of nations.
James Boswell
Tour to the Hebrides
(1785) 18 September 1773
I do not much like to see a Whig in any dress; but I hate to see a Whig in a parson's gown.
James Boswell
Tour to the Hebrides
(1785) 24 September 1773
A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.
James Boswell
Tour to the Hebrides
(1785) 5 October 1773
I am sorry I have not learned to play at cards. It is very useful in life: it generates kindness and consolidates society.
James Boswell
Tour to the Hebrides
(1785) 21 November 1773
johnson
: I had no notion that I was wrong or irreverent to my tutor.
boswell
: That, Sir, was great fortitude of mind.
johnson
: No, Sir; stark insensibility.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 31 October 1728
Sir, we are a nest of singing birds.
of Pembroke College, Oxford
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 1730
I'll come no more behind your scenes, David; for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities.
to Garrick
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 1750
This man I thought had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords.
of Lord Chesterfield
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 1754
They teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master.
of the Letters of Lord Chesterfield
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 1754
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? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labours, 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.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) letter to Lord Chesterfield, 7 February 1755
Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.
on being asked why he had defined pastern as the "knee" of a horse
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 1755
I did not think he ought to be shut up. His infirmities were not noxious to society. He insisted on people praying with him; and I'd as lief pray with Kit Smart as any one else.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 24 May 1763
The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 6 July 1763
A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 14 July 1763
But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses, let us count our spoons.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 14 July 1763.
A woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 31 July 1763
I refute it
thus.
on Boswell observing of Bishop Berkeley's theory of the non-existence of matter that though they were satisfied it was not true, they were unable to refute it, Johnson struck his foot against a large stone, till he rebounded from it, with these words
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 6 August 1763
Sir John, Sir, is a very unclubbable man.
of Sir John Hawkins
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) Spring 1764
In the description of night in Macbeth, the beetle and the bat detract from the general idea of darkness,—inspissated gloom.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 16 October 1769
Most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 26 October 1769
That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.
of a chance-met acquaintance
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 1770
The triumph of hope over experience.
of a man who remarried immediately after the death of a wife with whom he had been unhappy
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 1770
Every man has a lurking wish to appear considerable in his native place.
letter to Sir Joshua Reynolds, 17 July 1771
He has, indeed, done it very well; but it is a foolish thing well done.
on Goldsmith's apology in the London Chronicle for physically assaulting Thomas Evans
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 3 April 1773
elphinston
: What, have you not read it through?
johnson
: No, Sir, do
you
read books
through
?
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 19 April 1773
Read over your compositions, and where ever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
quoting a college tutor
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 30 April 1773
There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
James Boswell
Life of Samuel Johnson
(1791) 27 March 1775