7 Quotes by Samuel Johnson about names

  • Author Samuel Johnson
  • Quote

    To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.

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  • Author Samuel Johnson
  • Quote

    Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

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  • Author Samuel Johnson
  • Quote

    Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. The power of invention has been conferred by nature upon few, and the labour of learning those sciences which may, by mere labour, be obtained, is too great to be willingly endured; but every man can exert some judgment as he has upon the works of others; and he whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of critic.

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  • Author Samuel Johnson
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    Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order." - John V. Lindsay "No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.

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  • Author Samuel Johnson
  • Quote

    Plenty is the original cause of many of our needs; and even the poverty, which is so frequent and distressful in civilized nations, proceeds often from that change of manners which opulence has produced. Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries; but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

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  • Author Samuel Johnson
  • Quote

    Those who have any intention of deviating from the beaten roads of life, and acquiring a reputation superior to names hourly swept away by time among the refuse of fame, should add to their reason and their spirit the power of persisting in their pur

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