„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."
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."
“Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.”
Actually said by Thomas Cooper, a U.S. politician.
Misattributed
“No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.”
On Oliver Goldsmith1780
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV
Letter to Hester Thrale (5 July 1783) http://books.google.com/books?id=8JuiYLGldcsC&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=%22samuel+johnson%22+few+attacks+ridicule+invective+noise+provoke&source=web&ots=HMST_SM18L&sig=xovCcC2lKiTX9V0p61QvIC_yHW0&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result
1769
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)
1735
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I
“There Poetry shall tune her sacred voice,
And wake from ignorance the Western World.”
The Tragedy of Irene (1749), Act IV, Sc. 1
“This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.”
1763
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)
The Life of Cowley http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/lvwal10h.htm <br class="br">Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)
“He was so generally civil that nobody thanked him for it.”
1777
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)
Letter http://books.google.com/books?id=yEA_AQAAMAAJ&q=%22small+debts+are+like+small+shot+they+are+rattling+on+every+side+and+can+scarcely+be+escaped+without+a+wound+great+debts+are+like+cannon+of+loud+noise+but+little+danger%22&pg=PA189#v=onepage to Joseph Simpson, circa 1759 <br class="br">Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I
“All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it.”
April 15, 1778, p. 393
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III
Samuel Johnson The Idler
No. 70 (August 18, 1759)
The Idler (1758–1760)
Samuel Johnson The Rambler
No. 43 (14 August 1750)
The Rambler (1750–1752)
May 1781
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV
“Why, Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them.”
Feb. 15, 1766, p. 145
Said of Rousseau and Voltaire
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II
May 9, 1778, p. 409
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III
Quelle: Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson (1786), p. 83
1752
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)
August 6, 1763, p. 134
Said as he kicked a stone, speaking of Berkeley's "ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter".
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I
Samuel Johnson buch A Dictionary of the English Language
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. <br class="br"> Preface http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/preface.html <br class="br">A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
“Enlarge my life with multitude of days!”
In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays:
Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know
That life protracted is protracted woe.
Quelle: Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), Line 255
Samuel Johnson buch A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland
p. 8. https://books.google.com/books?id=-6JfAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA8 <br class="br">A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775)
Samuel Johnson buch A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland
pp. 366-367. https://books.google.com/books?id=-6JfAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA366 <br class="br">A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775)
Samuel Johnson The Rambler
No. 68 (10 November 1750)
The Rambler (1750–1752)
The Rambler, No. 150 (Sat 24 Aug 1751). http://www.yalejohnson.com/frontend/sda_viewer?n=106855 See also The Yale Book of Quotations, Samuel Johnson 3 (2006)