The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations Preface

Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see.
On the Giant’s Causeway, in James Boswell ‘The Life of Samuel Johnson’ (1791) vol. 3, p. 410 (12 October
1779)
If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.
Letter to Boswell, 27 October 1779, in James Boswell ‘The Life of Samuel Johnson’ (1791) vol. 3, p. 415.
Among the anfractuosities of the human mind, I know not if it may not be one, that there is a
superstitious reluctance to sit for a picture.
In James Boswell ‘The Life of Samuel Johnson’ (1791) vol. 4, p. 4 (1780)
Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock
him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.
In James Boswell ‘The Life of Samuel Johnson’ (1791) vol. 4, p. 12 (1780)
They are forced plants, raised in a hot-bed; and they are poor plants; they are but cucumbers
after all.
On Thomas Gray’s ‘Odes’, in James Boswell ‘The Life of Samuel Johnson’ (1791) vol. 4, p. 13 (1780)
A Frenchman must be always talking, whether he knows anything of the matter or not; an
Englishman is content to say nothing, when he has nothing to say.
In James Boswell ‘The Life of Samuel Johnson’ (1791) vol. 4, p. 15 (1780)
Sir, your wife, under pretence of keeping a bawdy-house, is a receiver of stolen goods.
During an exchange of coarse raillery customary among people travelling upon the Thames, in James Boswell
‘The Life of Samuel Johnson’ (1791) vol. 4, p. 26 (1780)
No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.
On Oliver Goldsmith, in James Boswell ‘The Life of Samuel Johnson’ (1791) vol. 4, p. 29 (1780).
Depend upon it, said he, that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is
not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to
the mention of it.
In James Boswell ‘The Life of Samuel Johnson’ (1791) vol. 4, p. 31 (1780)
I believe that is true. The dogs don’t know how to write trifles with dignity.
Reply to Fowke, who had observed that in writing biography Johnson infinitely exceeded his contemporaries,
in James Boswell ‘The Life of Samuel Johnson’ (1791) vol. 4, p. 34, n. 5 (1781)
Mrs Montagu has dropt me. Now, Sir, there are people whom one should like very well to
drop, but would not wish to be dropped by.
In James Boswell ‘The Life of Samuel Johnson’ (1791) vol. 4, p. 73 (March 1781)
This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.
James Boswell ‘The Life of Samuel Johnson’ (1791) vol. 4, p. 76 (March 1781)
Mr Long’s character is very short. It is nothing. He fills a chair. He is a man of genteel
appearance, and that is all.
On Mr Dudley Long, in James Boswell ‘The Life of Samuel Johnson’ (1791) vol. 4, p. 81 (1 April 1781)
We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich, beyond
the dreams of avarice.
At the sale of Thrale’s brewery, in James Boswell ‘The Life of Samuel Johnson’ (1791) vol. 4, p. 87 (6 April
1781).