Is not a patron one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?
Samuel JohnsonNo man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.
Samuel JohnsonHe that can swim needs not despair to fly; to swim is to fly in a grosser fluid, and to fly is to swim in a subtler. We are only to proportion our power of resistance to the different density of matter through which we are to pass. You will be necessarily upborne by the air if you can renew any impulse upon it faster than the air can recede from the pressure.
Samuel JohnsonFew faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of a more numerous class of readers, than the use of hard words.
Samuel JohnsonIt is no matter what you teach them first, any more than what leg you shall put into your breeches first. You may stand disputing which is best to put in first, but in the mean time your breech is bare. Sir, while you are considering which of two things you should teach your child first, another boy has learned them both.
Samuel Johnson