Samuel Johnson frasi celebri
“Richardson aveva colto il nocciolo della vita… mentre Fielding si era accontentato del guscio.”
da Thraliana , a cura di Balderston, I, p. 555
riferendosi ai critici; citato in James Boswell, Vita di Samuel Johnson, 1754
citato in James Boswell, Vita di Samuel Johnson, 14 luglio 1763
“Ciò che è scritto senza sforzo è generalmente letto senza piacere.”
da Miscellanies
Johnson Miscellanies
Samuel Johnson Frasi e Citazioni
“Fielding è capace di descrivere un cavallo o un asino ma non ci è mai riuscito con un mulo.”
da Johnson Miscellanies, a cura di George Birkbeck Norman Hill, I, pp. 273-4
Origine: Citato in Ian Watt, Le origini del romanzo borghese (The Rise Of The Novel), traduzione di Luigi Del Grosso Destrieri, Bompiani, Milano, 1985.
“Le cifre tonde sono sempre false.”
citato in Apophthegms, Sentiments, Opinions and Occasional Reflections di Sir John Hawkins, in Johnsonian Miscellanies (1897), vol. II, pag. 2, edito da George Birkbeck Hill
Johnson Miscellanies
citato in James Boswell, Vita di Samuel Johnson, 30 aprile 1773
Origine: Citato in John Lukacs, Democrazia e populismo, traduzione di Giovanni Ferrara degli Uberti, Longanesi, 2006, p. 152.
citato in James Boswell, Vita di Samuel Johnson
Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.
[Citazione errata] Questa citazione viene spesso attribuita a Johnson ma non trova alcun riscontro nelle opere o nelle lettere dello scrittore, né tanto meno nelle biografie di Johnson scritte dai suoi contemporanei.
Attribuite
Origine: Samuel Johnson did not say: "Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good." http://www.samueljohnson.com/goodorig.html, Samuel Johnson.com.
“In quante poche case degli amici sceglierebbe di stare un uomo quando è ammalato!”
Origine: Citato in Boswell, Life of Johnson, IV.
Origine: Citato in Dizionario delle citazioni, a cura di Italo Sordi, BUR, 1992. ISBN 14603-X
“La natura ha dato alla donna un tale potere che la legge ha giustamente deciso di dargliene poco.”
Origine: Da Letters, I.
Origine: Citato in Dizionario delle citazioni, a cura di Italo Sordi, BUR, 1992. ISBN 14603-X
Samuel Johnson: Frasi in inglese
“Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.”
1776
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)
The Life of Edmund Smith
Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)
The Plays of William Shakespeare, Vol. I (1765), Preface
A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
Origine: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 48
“The potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.”
1780?
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)
1750 Journal
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I
“Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.”
Letter from Johnson to John Taylor, 18 August 1763. The Yale Book of Quotations edited by Fred R. Shapiro, pg 400.
“Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.”
April 10, 1778
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III
“You see they'd have fitted him to a T.”
1784
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)
“All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to shew how much he can spare.”
April 25, 1778, p. 403
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III
“Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.”
May 8, 1781
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV
“I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.”
1763
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)
"It's written by Charles Grosvenor Osgood (1871-1964), as part of a 1917 preface to Boswell's 'Life of Johnson.'"
The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page http://www.samueljohnson.com/apocryph.html#2 Retrieved 2013-07-07
Misattributed
“The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.”
The Life of Sir Thomas Browne (1756) http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/browne.html
“It is as bad as bad can be: it is ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-drest.”
Of roast mutton served to him at an inn, June 3, 1784, p. 535
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV
“His conversation does not show the minute-hand, but he strikes the hour very correctly.”
Kearsley, 604
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Johnsoniana
July 21, 1763, p. 126
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I
“Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young.”
1772
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)
“Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.”
Preface http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/preface.html
A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
“I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.”
On his final illness, 1784, p. 566
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV
“A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.”
April 24, 1779, p. 424
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III
