"Dr. johnson" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to give a definition of nonsense, Dr. Johnson replied, "Sir, it is nonsense to bolt a ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... this person "has an idea that the train has started", and the other "had no idea that the dinner would be so bad". But this word 'idea' is perhaps the worst case in the English language. Matters have not mended here since the times of Dr. Johnson; of whom Boswell tells us: "He was particularly indignant against the almost universal use of the word idea in the sense of notion or opinion, when it is clear that idea can only signify something of which an image can be formed in the mind". There is perhaps ...
— English Past and Present • Richard Chenevix Trench
... to mortals like himself, may demand, like Augustus, to be dismissed at his departure with applause." He reflected that he, an ironmonger's son, was not born to save the world, and if the great Dr. Johnson could say what he did, with how little ought not a humble Cowfold tradesman to be satisfied! We all of us have too vast a conception of the duty which Providence has imposed upon us; and one great service which modern geology and astronomy ...
— The Revolution in Tanner's Lane • Mark Rutherford
... Dr. Johnson has called 'metaphysical distresses.' It is striking enough to observe how differently the quiet monasteries of the Carthusian and Trappist brotherhoods affected Matthew Arnold and Robert Louis Stevenson. In his well-known elegiac stanzas Matthew ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Walter Raleigh
... humour, no outre illustration, no divergence from the beaten track is attempted; the heavy and portentous gravity of his manner and matter is unrelieved by a single touch of light—all is sombre, deep, profound. One can fancy that Dr. Buchanan is inclined to think, with Dr. Johnson, that a punster is as ...
— Western Worthies - A Gallery of Biographical and Critical Sketches of West - of Scotland Celebrities • J. Stephen Jeans
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