Samuel Johnson Quotes About Ridicule

• It is easy for a man who sits idle at home, and has nobody to please but himself, to ridicule or censure the common practices of mankind.

  Samuel Johnson

  Home, Men, Practice

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

• Nothing has so exposed men of learning to contempt and ridicule as their ignorance of things which are known to all but themselves. Those who have been taught to consider the institutions of the schools as giving the last perfection to human abilities are surprised to see men wrinkled with study, yet wanting to be instructed in the minute circumstances of propriety, or the necessary form of daily transaction; and quickly shake off their reverence for modes of education which they find to produce no ability above the rest of mankind.

  Samuel Johnson

  School, Ignorance, Men

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “Works”, p.420

• All violation of established practice implies in its own nature a rejection of the common opinion, a defiance of common censure, and an appeal from general laws to private judgment: he, therefore, who differs form others without apparent advantage, ought not to be angry if his arrogance is punished with ridicule; if those whose example he superciliously overlooks, point him out to derision, and hoot him back again into the common road.

  Samuel Johnson

  Law, Practice, Rejection

  Samuel Johnson (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson...”, p.178

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