Samuel Johnson Quotes About Authority

• They that have grown old in a single state are generally found to be morose, fretful and captious; tenacious of their own practices and maxims; soon offended by contradiction or negligence; and impatient of any association but with those that will watch their nod, and submit themselves to unlimited authority.

  Samuel Johnson

  Practice, Watches, Association

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.194

• Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice that we, for the most part, summon our powers to oppose it without very accurate inquiry whether it is right. It is sufficient that another is growing great in his own eyes at our expense, and assumes authority over us without our permission; for many would contentedly suffer the consequences of their own mistakes, rather than the insolence of him who triumphs as their deliverer.

  Samuel Johnson

  Mistake, Eye, Vanity

  Samuel Johnson (1824). “The works of Samuel Johnson”, p.99

• It ought to be the first endeavour of a writer to distinguish nature from custom; or that which is established because it is right, from that which is right only because it is established; that he may neither violate essential principles by a desire of novelty, nor debar himself from the attainment of beauties within his view, by a needless fear of breaking rules which no literary dictator had authority to enact.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Views, Desire

  Samuel Johnson, Peter Martin (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.197, Harvard University Press

• A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.

  Samuel Johnson

  Country, Law, Prison

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1786). “Boswell's Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides, and Johnson's Diary of A Journey Into North Wales”, p.202

• I do not wonder that, where the monastick life is permitted, every order finds votaries, and every monastery inhabitants. Men will submit to any rule, by which they may be exempted from the tyranny of caprice and of chance. They are glad to supply by external authority their own want of constancy and resolution, and court the government of others, when long experience has convinced them of their own inability to govern themselves.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Order, Discipline

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1799). “Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into North Wales”, p.422

• The faults of a writer of acknowledged excellence are more dangerous, because the influence of his example is more extensive; and the interest of learning requires that they should be discovered and stigmatized, before they have the sanction of antiquity conferred upon them, and become precedents of indisputable authority.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Excellence, Example

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Hester Mulson Chapone, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1785). “The Rambler”, p.212

• Lawful and settled authority is very seldom resisted when it is well employed.

  Samuel Johnson

  Authority, Wells, Employed

  Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.271

• The accidental prescriptions of authority, when time has procured them veneration, are often confounded with the laws of nature, and those rules are supposed coeval with reason, of which the first rise cannot be discovered.

  Samuel Johnson

  Law, Firsts, Reason

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.270

• It is almost always the unhappiness of a victorious disputant to destroy his own authority by claiming too many consequences, or diffusing his proposition to an indefensible extent.

  Samuel Johnson

  Unhappiness, Authority, Controversy

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.115

• When I first collected these authorities, I was desirous that every quotation should be useful to some other end than the illustration of a word; I therefore extracted from philosophers principles of science; from historians remarkable facts; from chymists complete processes; from divines striking exhortations; and from poets beautiful descriptions.

  Samuel Johnson

  Beautiful, Illustration, Firsts

  Samuel Johnson (2006). “A Dictionary of the English Language: an Anthology: an Anthology”, p.101, Penguin UK

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