The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

‘Taxation No Tyranny’ (1775 (Yale ed., vol. 10, p. 454)
A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent
degree of curiosity.
Dedication of his English translation of Fr. J. Lobo’s ‘Voyage to Abyssinia’ (1735), signed ‘the editor’ but
attributed to Johnson in James Boswell ‘The Life of Samuel Johnson’ (1791) vol. 1, p. 89 (1734)
Unmoved though witlings sneer and rivals rail;
Studious to please, yet not ashamed to fail.
‘Irene’ (1749) prologue
There Poetry shall tune her sacred voice,
And wake from ignorance the Western World.
‘Irene’ (1749) act 4, sc. 1, l. 122 (Demetrius forecasting the Renaissance)
How small of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.
Still to ourselves in every place consigned,
Our own felicity we make or find.
Lines added to Oliver Goldsmith’s ‘The Traveller’ (1764) l. 429.
Here falling houses thunder on your head,
And here a female atheist talks you dead.
‘London’ (1738) l. 17
Of all the griefs that harrass the distressed,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest;
Fate never wounds more deep the gen’rous heart,
Than when a blockhead’s insult points the dart.
‘London’ (1738) l. 166
This mournful truth is ev’rywhere confessed,
Slow rises worth, by poverty depressed.
‘London’ (1738) l. 176
Condemned to hope’s delusive mine,
As on we toil from day to day,
By sudden blasts, or slow decline,
Our social comforts drop away.
‘On the Death of Dr Robert Levet’ (1783)
When learning’s triumph o’er her barb’rous foes
First reared the stage, immortal Shakespeare rose;
Each change of many-coloured life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new.
‘Prologue spoken at the Opening of the Theatre in Drury Lane’ (1747)
The stage but echoes back the public voice.
The drama’s laws the drama’s patrons give,
For we that live to please, must please to live.