Samuel Johnson , wegen seiner Gelehrsamkeit meist Dr. Johnson genannt , war ein englischer Gelehrter, Lexikograf, Schriftsteller, Dichter und Kritiker. Er ist nach William Shakespeare der meistzitierte englische Autor und war im 18. Jahrhundert die wichtigste Person im literarischen Leben Englands, vergleichbar mit Gottsched in Deutschland.
„Patriotismus ist die letzte Zuflucht des Halunken.“
"The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D." von James Boswell, Eintrag vom 7. April 1775. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1791. Band 1, S. 211
Original engl. "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
"The Life of Samuel Johnson, L.L.D." von James Boswell, Eintrag vom 31. Juli 1763. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1791. Band 1, S. 112
Original engl. "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."
Quelle: Übersetzung Wikiquote
"The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D." von James Boswell, Eintrag vom 20. September 1777. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1791. Band 2, S. 160
Original engl. "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."
“Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.”
1776
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)
The Life of Edmund Smith
Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)
The Plays of William Shakespeare, Vol. I (1765), Preface
A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
Quelle: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 48
“The potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.”
1780?
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)
1750 Journal
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I
“Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.”
Letter from Johnson to John Taylor, 18 August 1763. The Yale Book of Quotations edited by Fred R. Shapiro, pg 400.
“Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.”
April 10, 1778
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III
“You see they'd have fitted him to a T.”
1784
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)
“All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to shew how much he can spare.”
April 25, 1778, p. 403
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III
“Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.”
May 8, 1781
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV
“I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.”
1763
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)
"It's written by Charles Grosvenor Osgood (1871-1964), as part of a 1917 preface to Boswell's 'Life of Johnson.'"
The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page http://www.samueljohnson.com/apocryph.html#2 Retrieved 2013-07-07
Misattributed
“The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.”
The Life of Sir Thomas Browne (1756) http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/browne.html
“It is as bad as bad can be: it is ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-drest.”
Of roast mutton served to him at an inn, June 3, 1784, p. 535
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV
“His conversation does not show the minute-hand, but he strikes the hour very correctly.”
Kearsley, 604
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Johnsoniana
July 21, 1763, p. 126
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I
“Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young.”
1772
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)
“Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.”
Preface http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/preface.html
A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
“I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.”
On his final illness, 1784, p. 566
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV
“A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.”
April 24, 1779, p. 424
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III
