Samuel Johnson - Sir Quotes

65 Sourced Quotes

Of Pembroke College:
Sir, we are a nest of singing birds.

Samuel Johnson
On being told that it would not be possible to finish his Dictionary in three years, because the French Academy, that consists of forty members, took forty years to compile the French dictionary:
Sir, thus it is. This is the proportion. Let me see; forty times forty is sixteen hundred. As three to sixteen hundred, so is the proportion of an Englishman to a Frenchman.

Samuel Johnson
Not impressed with the performance of a virtuoso violinist:
Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible.

Samuel Johnson