Complete Works of Samuel Johnson, page 894
END. ‘I am sure I am right, and there’s an end on’t’ (Boswell in
imitation of Johnson), iii. 301;
‘We know our will is free, and there’s an end on’t,’ ii. 82;
‘What the boys get at one end they lose at the other,’ ii. 407.
ENDLESS. ‘Endless labour to be wrong,’ iii. 158, n. 3.
ENGLAND. ‘It is not so much to be lamented that Old England is lost, as that the Scotch have found it,’ iii. 78.
ENGLISHMAN. ‘An Englishman is content to say nothing when he has
nothing to say,’ iv. 15;
’We value an Englishman highly in this country, and yet Englishmen
are not rare in it,’ iii. 10.
ENTHUSIAST. ‘Sir, he is an enthusiast by rule,’ iv. 33.
EPIGRAM. ‘Why, Sir, he may not be a judge of an epigram; but you see he is a judge of what is not an epigram,’ iii. 259.
Esprit. ‘Il n’a de l’esprit que contre Dieu,’ iii. 388.
Étudiez. ‘Ah, Monsieur, vous étudiez trop,’ iv. 15.
EVERYTHING. ‘A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything,’ iv. 176.
EXCELLENCE. ‘Compared with excellence, nothing,’ iii. 320;
’Is getting £100,000 a proof of excellence?’ iii. 184.
EXCESS. ‘Such an excess of stupidity, Sir, is not in nature,’ i. 453.
EXERCISE. ‘He used for exercise to walk to the ale-house, but he was carried back again,’ i. 397; ‘I take the true definition of exercise to be labour without weariness,’ iv. 151, n. 1.
EXISTENCE. ‘Every man is to take existence on the terms on which it is given to him,’ iii. 58.
F.
FACT. ‘Housebreaking is a strong fact,’ ii. 65.
FACTION. ‘Dipped his pen in faction,’ i. 375, n. 1.
FAGGOT. ‘He takes its faggot of principles,’ v. 36.
FALLIBLE. ‘A fallible being will fail somewhere,’ ii. 132.
FAME. ‘Fame is a shuttlecock,’ v. 400;
’He had no fame but from boys who drank with him,’ v. 268.
FARTHING CANDLE. ‘Sir, it is burning a farthing candle at Dover to show light at Calais,’ i. 454.
FAT. ‘Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat,’ iv. 313.
FEELING. ‘They pay you by feeling,’ ii. 95.
FEET. ‘We grow to five feet pretty readily, but it is not so easy to grow to seven,’ iii. 316.
FELLOW. ‘I look upon myself as a good-humoured fellow,’ ii. 362; ‘When we see a very foolish fellow we don’t know what to think of him,’ ii. 54.
FELLOWS. ‘They are always telling lies of us old fellows,’ iii. 303.
FIFTH. ‘I heartily wish, Sir, that I were a fifth,’ iv. 312.
Filosofo. ‘Tu sei santo, ma tu non sei filosofo’ (Giannone), iv. 3.
FINE. ‘Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out’ (a college tutor), ii. 237; ‘Were I to have anything fine, it should be very fine,’ iv. 179; v. 364.
FINGERS. ‘I e’en tasted Tom’s fingers,’ ii. 403.
FIRE. ‘A man cannot make fire but in proportion as he has fuel,’ &c.,
v. 229;
’If it were not for depriving the ladies of the fire I should like
to stand upon the hearth myself,’ iv. 304, n. 4;
’Would cry, Fire! Fire! in Noah’s flood’ (Butler), v. 57, n. 2.
FISHES. ‘If a man comes to look for fishes you cannot blame him if he does not attend to fowls,’ v. 221.
FLATTERERS. ‘The fellow died merely from want of change among his flatterers,’ v. 396, n. 1.
FLATTERY. ‘Dearest lady, consider with yourself what your flattery is worth, before you bestow it so freely,’ iv. 341.
FLEA. ‘A flea has taken you such a time that a lion must have served you a twelvemonth,’ ii. 194; ‘There is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea,’ iv. 193.
FLING. ‘If I fling half a crown to a beggar with intention to break his head,’ &c., i. 398.
FLOUNDERS. ‘He flounders well,’ v. 93, n. 1; ‘Till he is at the bottom he flounders,’ v. 243.
FLY. ‘A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince, but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still,’ i. 263, n. 3.
FOLLY. ‘There are in these verses too much folly for madness, and too much madness for folly,’ iii. 258, n. 2.
FOOL. ‘I should never hear music, if it made me such a fool,’ iii.
197;
’There’s danger in a fool’ (Churchill), v. 217, n. 1.
FOOLISH. ‘I would almost be content to be as foolish,’ iii. 21, n, 2;
’It is a foolish thing well done,’ ii. 210.
FOOLS. ‘I never desire to meet fools anywhere,’ iii. 299, n. 2.
FOOTMAN. ‘A well-behaved fellow citizen, your footman,’ i. 447.
FOREIGNERS. ‘For anything I see foreigners are fools’
(‘Old’ Meynell), iv. 15.
FORTUNE. ‘It is gone into the city to look for a fortune,’ ii. 126.
FORWARD. ‘He carries you round and round without carrying you forward to the point; but then you have no wish to be carried forward,’ iv. 48.
FOUR-PENCE. ‘Garrick was bred in a family whose study was to make four-pence do as much as others made fourpence halfpenny do,’ iii. 387.
FRANCE. ‘Will reduce us to babble a dialect of France,’ iii. 343, n. 3.
FRENCH. ‘I think my French is as good as his English,’ ii. 404.
FRENCHMAN. ‘A Frenchman must be always talking, whether he knows anything of the matter or not,’ iv. 15.
FRIEND. ‘A friend with whom they might compare minds, and cherish private virtues,’ iii. 387.
FRIENDSHIP. ‘A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair,’ i. 300.
FRIENDSHIPS. ‘Most friendships are formed by caprice or by chance, mere confederacies in vice or leagues in folly,’ iv. 280.
FRISK. ‘I’ll have a frisk with you,’ i. 250.
FROTH. ‘Longing to taste the froth from every stroke of the oar,’
v. 440, n. 2.
FROWN. ‘On which side soever I turn, mortality presents its formidable frown,’ iv. 366.
FRUGAL. ‘He was frugal by inclination, but liberal by principle,’ iv. 62, n. 1.
FULL MEAL. ‘Every man gets a little, but no man gets a full meal,’ ii. 363.
FUNDAMENTALLY. ‘I say the woman was fundamentally sensible,’ iv. 99.
FUTILE. ’Tis a futile fellow’ (Garrick), ii. 326.
G.
GABBLE. ‘Nay, if you are to bring in gabble I’ll talk no more,’ iii. 350.
GAIETY. ‘Gaiety is a duty when health requires it,’ iii. 136, n. 2.
GAOL. See SAILOR.
GAOLER. ‘No man, now, has the same authority which his father had, except a gaoler,’ iii. 262.
GARRETS. ‘Garrets filled with scribblers accustomed to lie,’ iii. 267, n. 1.
GENERAL. ‘A man is to guard himself against taking a thing in general,’ iii. 8.
GENEROUS. ‘I do not call a tree generous that sheds its fruit at every breeze,’ v. 400.
GENIUS. ‘A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself,’ i. 381.
GENTEEL. ‘No man can say “I’ll be genteel,”’ iii. 53.
Gentilhomme. ‘Un gentilhomme est toujours gentilhomme’ (Boswell), i. 492.
GENTLE. ‘When you have said a man of gentle manners you have said enough,’ iv. 28.
GENTLEMAN. ‘Don’t you consider, Sir, that these are not the manners of a gentleman?’ iii. 268.
GEORGE. ‘Tell the rest of that to George’ (R. O. Cambridge), iv. 196, n. 3.
GHOST. ‘If I did, I should frighten the ghost,’ v. 38.
GLARE. ‘Gave a distinguished glare to tyrannic rage’ (Tom Davies), ii. 368, n. 3.
GLASSY. ‘Glassy water, glassy water,’ ii. 212, n. 4.
GLOOMY. ‘Gloomy calm of idle vacancy,’ i. 473.
GOD. ‘I am glad that he thanks God for anything,’ i. 287.
GOES ON. ‘He goes on without knowing how he is to get off,’ ii. 196.
GOOD. ‘Sir, my being so good is no reason why you should be so ill,’ iii. 268; ‘Everybody loves to have good things furnished to them, without any trouble,’ iv. 90; ‘I am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly,’ iv. 239; ‘A look that expressed that a good thing was coming,’ iii. 425.
GRACES. ‘Every man of any education would rather be called a rascal than accused of deficiency in the graces,’ iii. 54.
GRAND. ‘Grand nonsense is insupportable,’ i. 402.
GRATIFIED. ‘Not highly gratified, yet I do not recollect to have passed many evenings with fewer objections,’ ii, 130.
GRAVE. ‘We shall receive no letters in the grave,’ iv. 413.
GRAZED. ‘He is the richest author that ever grazed the common of literature,’ i. 418, n. 1.
GREAT. ‘A man would never undertake great things could he be amused with small,’ iii. 242; ‘I am the great Twalmley,’ iv. 193.
GREYHOUND. ‘He sprang up to look at his watch like a greyhound bounding at a hare,’ ii. 460.
GRIEF. ‘All unnecessary grief is unwise,’ iii. 136;
’Grief has its time,’ iv. 121;
’Grief is a species of idleness,’ iii. 136, n. 2.
GUINEA. ‘He values a new guinea more than an old friend,’ v. 315;
‘There go two and forty sixpences to one guinea,’ ii. 201, n. 3.
GUINEAS. ‘He cannot coin guineas but in proportion as he has gold,’ v. 229.
H.
HANDS. ‘A man cutting off his hands for fear he should steal,’ ii. 435; ‘I would rather trust my money to a man who has no hands, and so a physical impossibility to steal, than to a man of the most honest principles,’ iv. 224.
HANGED. ‘A friend hanged, and a cucumber pickled,’ ii. 94;
’Do you think that a man the night before he is to be hanged cares
for the succession of a royal family?’ iii. 270;
’He is not the less unwilling to be hanged,’ iii. 295;
’If he were once fairly hanged I should not suffer,’ ii. 94;
’No man is thought the worse of here whose brother was hanged,’ ii.
177;
’So does an account of the criminals hanged yesterday entertain
us,’ iii. 318;
’I will dispute very calmly upon the probability of another man’s
son being hanged,’ iii. 11;
’You may as well ask if I hanged myself to-day,’ iv. 173;
’Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a
fortnight it concentrates his mind wonderfully,’ iii. 167.
HAPPINESS. ‘These are only struggles for happiness,’ iii. 199.
HAPPY. ‘It is the business of a wise man to be happy,’ iii. 135.
HARASSED. ‘We have been harassed by invitations,’ v. 395.
HARE. ‘My compliments, and I’ll dine with him, hare or rabbit,’ iii. 207.
HATE. ‘Men hate more steadily than they love,’ iii. 150.
HATER. ‘He was a very good hater,’ i. 190, n. 2.
HEAD. ‘A man must have his head on something, small or great,’ ii. 473, n. 1.
HEADACHE. ‘At your age I had no headache,’ i. 462; ‘Nay, Sir, it was not the wine that made your head ache, but the sense that I put into it,’ iii. 381.
HEAP. ‘The mighty heap of human calamity,’ iii. 289, n. 3.
HELL. ‘Hell is paved with good intentions,’ ii. 360.
HERMIT. ‘Hermit hoar in solemn cell,’ iii. 159.
HIDE. ‘Exert your whole care to hide any fit of anxiety,’ iii. 368.
HIGH. ‘Here is a man six feet high and you are angry because he is not seven,’ v. 222.
HIGHLANDS. ‘Who can like the Highlands?’ v. 377.
HISS. Ah! Sir, a boy’s being flogged is not so severe as a man’s having the hiss of the world against him,’ i. 451.
HISTORIES. ‘This is my history; like all other histories, a narrative of misery,’ iv. 362.
HOG. ‘Yes, Sir, for a hog,’ iv. 13.
HOGSTYE. ‘He would tumble in a hogstye as long as you looked at him, and called to him to come out,’ i. 432.
HOLE. ‘A man may hide his head in a hole … and then complain he is neglected,’ iv. 172.
HONESTLY. ‘I who have eaten his bread will not give him to him; but I should be glad he came honestly by him,’ v. 277.
Honores. ‘Honores mutant mores’ iv. 130.
HONOUR. ‘If you do not see the honour, I am sure I feel the disgrace’ (fathered on Johnson), iv. 342.
HOOKS. ‘He has not indeed many hooks; but with what hooks he has, he grapples very forcibly,’ ii. 57.
HOPE. ‘He fed you with a continual renovation of hope to end in a constant succession of disappointment,’ ii. 122.
HOTTENTOT. ‘Sir, you know no more of our Church than a Hottentot,’ v. 382.
HOUSEWIFERY. ‘The fury of housewifery will soon subside,’ iv. 85, n. 2.
HUGGED. ‘Had I known that he loved rhyme as much as you tell me he does, I should have hugged him,’ i. 427.
HUMANITY. ‘We as yet do not enough understand the common rights of humanity,’ iv. 191, 284.
HUNG. ‘Sir, he lived in London, and hung loose upon Society,’ i. 226.
HUNTED. ‘Am I to be hunted in this manner?’ iv. 170.
HURT. ‘You are to a certain degree hurt by knowing that even one man does not believe,’ iii. 380.
HYPOCRISY. ‘I hoped you had got rid of all this hypocrisy of misery,’ iv. 71.
HYPOCRITE. ‘No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures,’ iv. 316.
I.
I. ‘I put my hat upon my head,’ ii. 136, n. 4.
IDEA. ‘That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one,’ ii. 126; ‘There is never one idea by the side of another,’ iv. 225.
IDLE. ‘If we were all idle, there would be no growing weary,’ ii. 98;
’We would all be idle if we could,’ iii. 13.
IDLENESS. ‘I would rather trust his idleness than his fraud,’ v. 263.
IGNORANCE. ‘A man may choose whether he will have abstemiousness
and knowledge, or claret and ignorance,’ iii. 335;
’He did not know enough of Greek to be sensible of his ignorance
of the language,’ iv. 33, n. 3;
’His ignorance is so great I am afraid to show him the bottom of
it,’ iv. 33, n. 3
’Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance,’ i. 293;
’Sir, you talk the language of ignorance,’ ii. 122.
IGNORANT. ‘The ignorant are always trying to be cunning,’ v.
217, n. 1;
’We believe men ignorant till we know that they are learned,’
v. 253.
ILL. ‘A man could not write so ill if he should try,’ iii. 243.
ILL-FED. ‘It is as bad as bad can be; it is ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept and ill-drest,’ iv. 284.
IMAGERY. ‘He that courts his mistress with Roman imagery deserves to lose her,’ v. 268, n. 2.
IMAGINATION. ‘There is in them what was imagination,’ i. 421; ‘This is only a disordered imagination taking a different turn,’ iii. 158.
IMMORTALITY. ‘If it were not for the notion of immortality he would cut a throat to fill his pockets,’ ii. 359.
IMPARTIAL. ‘Foote is quite impartial, for he tells lies of everybody,’ ii. 434.
IMPORTS. ‘Let your imports be more than your exports, and you’ll never go far wrong,’ iv. 226.
IMPOSSIBLE. ‘That may be, Sir, but it is impossible for you to know it,’ ii. 466, n. 3; ‘I would it had been impossible,’ ii. 409, n. 1.
IMPOTENCE. ‘He is narrow, not so much from avarice as from impotence to spend his money,’ iii. 40.
IMPRESSIONS. ‘Do not accustom yourself to trust to impressions,’ iv. 122.
IMPUDENCE. ‘An instance how far impudence could carry ignorance,’ iii. 390.
INCOMPRESSIBLE. ‘Foote is the most incompressible fellow that I ever knew,’ &c., v. 391.
INDIA. ‘Nay, don’t give us India,’ v. 209.
INEBRIATION. ‘He is without skill in inebriation,’ iii. 389.
INFERIOR. ‘To an inferior it is oppressive; to a superior it is insolent,’ v. 73.
INFERIORITY. ‘There is half a guinea’s worth of inferiority to other people in not having seen it,’ ii. 169.
INFIDEL. ‘If he be an infidel he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel,’
ii. 95;
’Shunning an infidel to-day and getting drunk to-morrow’ (A
celebrated friend), iii. 410.
INGRAT. ‘Je fais cent mécontens et un ingrat’ (Voltaire), ii. 167, n. 3.
INNOVATION. ‘Tyburn itself is not safe from the fury of innovation,’ iv. 188.
INSIGNIFICANCE. ‘They will be tamed into insignificance,’ v. 148, n. 1.
INSOLENCE. ‘Sir, the insolence of wealth will creep out,’ iii. 316.
INTENTION. ‘We cannot prove any man’s intention to be bad,’ ii. 12.
INTREPIDITY. ‘He has an intrepidity of talk, whether he understands the subject or not,’ v. 330.
INVERTED. ‘Sir, he has the most inverted understanding of any man whom I have ever known,’ iii. 379.
IRONS. ‘The best thing I can advise you to do is to put your tragedy along with your irons,’ iii. 259, n. 1.
IRRESISTIBLY. ‘No man believes himself to be impelled irresistibly,’ iv. 123.
IT. ‘It is not so. Do not tell this again,’ iii. 229.
J.
JACK. ‘If a jack is seen, a spit will be presumed,’ ii. 215, n. 4; iii. 461.
JACK KETCH. ‘Dine with Jack Wilkes, Sir! I’d as soon dine with
Jack Ketch’ (Boswell), iii. 66.
JEALOUS. ‘Little people are apt to be jealous,’ iii. 55.
JOKE. ‘I may be cracking my joke, and cursing the sun,’ iv. 304.
JOKES. ‘A game of jokes is composed partly of skill, partly of chance,’ ii. 231.
JOSTLE. ‘Yes, Sir, if it were necessary to jostle him down,’ ii. 443.
JOSTLED. ‘After we had been jostled into conversation,’ iv. 48, n. 1.
JUDGE. ‘A judge may be a farmer; but he is not to geld his own pigs,’ ii. 344.
JURY. ‘Consider, Sir, how should you like, though conscious of your innocence, to be tried before a jury for a capital crime once a week,’ iii. 11.
