The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.

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J. Richardson, 1823

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Page 363 - Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
Page 326 - There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
Page 190 - I believe they might be good beings ; but they were not fit to be in the University of Oxford. A cow is a very good animal in the field ; but we turn her out of a garden.
Page 213 - ... else that denoted his imbecility. I as much believe that he wrote it, as if I had seen him do it. Sir, had he shown it to any one friend, he would not have been allowed to publish it. He has, indeed, done it very well ; but it is a foolish thing well done. I suppose he has been so much elated with the success of his new comedy, that he has thought every thing that concerned him must be of importance to the public.
Page 123 - Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, he said, was the only book that ever took him out of bed two hours sooner than he wished to rise.
Page 173 - But, Sir, in the British Constitution it is surely of importance to keep up a spirit in the people, so as to preserve a balance against the Crown ". JoHNSON : " Sir, I perceive you are a vile Whig. — Why all this childish jealousy of the power of the Crown ? The Crown has not power enough.
Page 323 - I wondered to hear him say of " Gulliver's Travels," —" When once you have thought of big men and little men, it is very easy to do all the rest.
Page 90 - ... of the boats, and other circumstances, are all very good description ; but do not impress the mind at once with the horrible idea of immense height. The impression is divided ; you pass on by computation, from one stage of the tremendous space to another. Had the girl in ' The Mourning Bride' said, she could not cast h'er shoe to the top of one of the pillars in the temple, it would not have aided the idea, but weakened it.
Page 260 - I remember one day, when Tom Davies was telling that Dr. Johnson said — ' We are all in labour for a name to Goldy's play,' Goldsmith seemed displeased that such a liberty should be taken with his name, and said, ' I have often desired him not to call me Goldy.
Page 233 - For instance, (said he), the fable of the little fishes, who saw birds fly over their heads, and envying them, petitioned Jupiter to be changed into birds. The skill (continued he,) consists in making them talk like little fishes.

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