It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrain…

Samuel Johnson
884 citations
It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief. ✨ Samuel Johnson (2012). Lives of the Poets, p.119, tredition
Politics
18

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Every period of life is obliged to borrow its happiness from time to come. ✨ Samuel Johnson (1761). The Rambler: In Four Volumes, p.212
What ever the motive for the insult, it is always best to overlook it; for folly doesn't deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect.
Why, sir, Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, Sir, is not in Nature. ✨ On Thomas Sheridan, in … ▶
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The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay, or dislike hourly increased by causes too slender for complaint, and too numerous for removal. ✨ Samuel Johnson (1848). The Wisdom of the Ramble … ▶

It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief. ✨ Samuel Johnson (2012). Lives of the Poets, p.119, tredition

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