Poems List

Whatever is formed for long duration arrives slowly to its maturity.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life.

James Boswell Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) 20 September 1777

When female minds are embittered by age or solitude, their malignity is generally exerted in a rigorous and spiteful superintendence of domestic trifles.

When I observed he was a fine cat, saying,

‘Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this’; and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, ‘but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.’

When learning’s triumph o’er her barb’rous foes First rear’d the stage, immortal Shakespeare rose; Each change of many-color’d life he drew, Exhausted worlds, and then imagin’d new: Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign, And panting Time toil’d after him in vain.

Prologue at the Opening of Drury Lane Theatre [1747]

When making your choice in life, do not neglect to live.
When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality.
When speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.

When the hoary Sage replied, “Come, my lad, and drink some beer.”

From M RS . P IOZZI , 6 Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson [1786]

When two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather.

in The Idler no. 11 (24 June 1758)

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