Samuel Johnson Quotes

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. The power of invention has been conferred by nature upon few, and the labour of learning those sciences which may, by mere labour, be obtained, is too great to be willingly endured; but every man can exert some judgment as he has upon the works of others; and he whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of critic.

Pedants, who have the least knowledge to be proud of, are impelled most by vanity.

Sometimes it occurs to me that the job of a serious cultural critic mostly consists in telling the generality of people that their opinions - on films, on books, on all manner of widgets, gadgets and even the latest electronic fidgets - simply aren't up to scratch.

Education is lacking in most of those who pontificate.

I don't watch it, but I know enough to comment on it.

What a sense of superiority it gives one to escape reading some book which everyone else is reading.

Arrogance on the part of the meritorious is even more offensive to us than the arrogance of those without merit: for merit itself is offensive.

The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar.

The people I respect the least are the ones that take themselves way too seriously.

The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.

Education is a crutch with which the foolish attack the wise to prove that they are not idiots.

Washington is a city of arrogance.

Barton Fink is just too self-important as an artist to get much sympathy.

Practically every time I speak up at a school conference, a political event, or my apartment building association's annual meeting, I'm met with a display of someone else's superior intelligence.

Sam Duvet is like me but turned up: more vain and dumber.

A whipper-snapper of criticism who quoted dead languages to hide his ignorance of life.

A coxcomb is ugly all over with the effectation of a fine gentleman.

Culture is only true when implicitly critical, and the mind which forgets this revenges itself in the critics it breeds. Criticism is an indispensable element of culture.

I'm not being condescending, I'm too busy thinking about far more important things you wouldn't understand.

The function of criticism should not be confused with the function of reform.

Pride is a fault that great men blush not to own: it is the ennobled offspring of self-love; though, it must be confessed, grave and pompous vanity, Iike a fat plebeian in a rove of office, does very often assume its name.

Man, you're no smarter than me. You're just a fancier kind of stupid.

Plain intellectual thinking is the peak of ignorance because all that you will know is to play with a few aspects and make others look like fools.

Laughter tends to mock the pompous and the pretentious; all man's boastful gadding about, all his pretty pomps, his hoary customs, his wornout creeds, changing the glitter of them into the dullest hue of lead.

It is both possible (and even necessary) to simultaneously enjoy media while also being critical of its more problematic or pernicious aspects.