Samuel Johnson Quotes About Judging

• Those that have done nothing in life, are not qualified to judge of those that have done little

  Samuel Johnson

  Judging, Done, Littles

  Samuel Johnson (1819). “The Beauties of Samuel Johnson: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous”, p.142

• Sir, sorrow is inherent in humanity. As you cannot judge two and two to be either five, or three, but certainly four, so, when comparing a worse present state with a better which is past, you cannot but feel sorrow. It is not cured by reason, but by the incursion of present objects, which bear out the past.

  Samuel Johnson

  Past, Two, Judging

  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.72

• Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.

  Samuel Johnson

  Judging, Criticism, Firsts

  Samuel Johnson (2011). “Dictionary of the English Language (Complete and Unabridged)”, p.2341, BookBaby

• God Himself, sir, does not propose to judge a man until his life is over. Why should you and I?

  Samuel Johnson

  Atheist, Inspiration, Men

• To embarrass justice by multiplicity of laws, or to hazard it by confidence in judges, seem to be the opposite rocks on which all civil institutions have been wrecked, and between which legislative wisdom has never yet found an open passage.

  Samuel Johnson

  Rocks, Law, Opposites

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1837). “Lives of the poets. Lives of eminent persons. Political tracts. Philological tracts. Miscellaneous tracts. Dedications. Opinions on questions of law. Reviews and criticisms. Journey to the Western islands of Scotland. Prayers and meditations”, p.363

• There are three distinct kind of judges upon all new authors or productions; the first are those who know no rules, but pronounce entirely from their natural taste and feelings; the second are those who know and judge by rules; and the third are those who know, but are above the rules. These last are those you should wish to satisfy. Next to them rate the natural judges; but ever despise those opinions that are formed by the rules.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Judging, Feelings

  Samuel Johnson (1961). “The critical opinions of Samuel Johnson”

• Those who have no power to judge of past times but by their own, should always doubt their conclusions

  Samuel Johnson

  Past, Judging, Doubt

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1857). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.35

• Sir, I have no objection to a man's drinking wine, if he can do it in moderation. I found myself apt to go to excess in it, and therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it. Every man is to judge for himself, according to the effects which he experiences.

  Samuel Johnson

  Drinking, Wine, Men

  Samuel Johnson (1807). “Dr. Johnson's Table-talk: Containing Aphorisms on Literature, Life, and Manners, with Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons, Selected and Arranged from Mr. Boswell's Life of Johnson”, p.42

• For gold the hireling judge distorts the laws.

  Samuel Johnson

  Law, Judging, Gold

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1837). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq”, p.548

• Scarcely any degree of judgment is sufficient to restrain the imagination from magnifying that on which it is long detained

  Samuel Johnson

  Long, Imagination, Judging

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1792). “Miscellaneous essays. Political tracts. A journey to the Western Islands of Scotland”, p.100

• A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge.

  Samuel Johnson

  Giving, Justice, Judging

  Quoted in James Boswell, The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785) (entry for 15 Aug. 1773)

• Excise: A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.

  Samuel Johnson

  Judging, Hateful, Common

  A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

• None but those who have learned the art of subjecting their senses as well as reason to hypothetical systems can be persuaded by the most specious rhetorician that the lots of life are equal; yet it cannot be denied that every one has his peculiar pleasures and vexations, that external accidents operate variously upon different minds, and that no man can exactly judge from his own sensations what another would feel in the same circumstances.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Men, Judging

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Hester Mulson Chapone, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1785). “The Rambler”, p.292

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