The characteristick quality of his poem is sublimity. He sometimes descends to the elegant, but his element is the great. He can occasionally invest himself with grace; but his natural port is gigantick loftiness. He can please when pleasure is required, but it is his peculiar power to astonish.
Samuel Johnson Quotes
Knowledge of the subject is to the poet what durable materials are to the architect.
It is strange how many things will happen to intercept every pleasure, though it be only that of two friends meeting together.
When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation.
So few of the hours of life are filled up with objects adequate to the mind of man, and so frequently are we in want of present pleasure or employment, that we are forced to have recourse every moment to the past and future for supplemental satisfactions, and relieve the vacuities of our being by […]
Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought; our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.
The great source of pleasure is variety.
Men seldom give pleasure when they are not pleased themselves.
