A Quote by Samuel Johnson

There is no being so poor and so contemptible, who does not think there is somebody still poorer, and still more contemptible.

Samuel Johnson

Quote Topics

Being Contemptible Does More Poor Poorer Somebody Still Think

Quote Author

Samuel Johnson
English - Writer
September 18, 1709 - December 13, 1784

What honest boy would pride himself on not picking pockets ? A thief who was trying to reform would. To be conceited of doing one's duty is then a sign of how little one does it, and how little one sees what a contemptible thing it is not to do it. Could any but a low creature be conceited of not being contemptible? Until our duty becomes to us common as breathing, we are poor creatures.

George MacDonald

Literary confessors are contemptible, like beggars who exhibit their sores for money, but not so contemptible as the public that buys their books.

W. H. Auden

There is not so contemptible a plant or animal that does not confound the most enlarged understanding.

John Locke

In a system of free trade and free markets poor countries - and poor people - are not poor because others are rich. Indeed, if others became less rich the poor would in all probability become still poorer.

Margaret Thatcher

Two people in love, alone, isolated from the world, that's very beautiful. But what would they nourish their intimate talk with? However contemptible the world may be, they still need it to be able to talk together.

Milan Kundera

Complaint is. more contemptible than pitiful.

Christian Nestell Bovee

Nothing can be more contemptible than to suppose Public Records to be true.

William Blake

There is nothing more contemptible than a bald man who pretends to have hair.

Martial

There is not in the universe a more ridiculous, nor a more contemptible animal, than a proud clergyman.

Henry Fielding

Title and ancestry render a good man more illustrious, but an ill one more contemptible.

Joseph Addison

The man who lets himself be bored is even more contemptible than the bore.

Samuel Butler

More paper money cannot make a society richer, of course, – it is just more printed-paper. Otherwise, why is it that there are still poor countries and poor people around? But more money makes its monopolistic producer (the central bank) and its earliest recipients (the government and big, government-connected banks and their major clients) richer at the expense of making the money's late and latest receivers poorer.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe

It seems to me that the moralist is the most useless and contemptible of creatures. He is useless in that he would expend his energies upon making judgments rather than upon gaining knowledge, for the reason that judgment is easy and knowledge is difficult. He is contemptible in that his judgments reflect a vision of himself which in his ignorance and pride he would impose upon the world. I implore you, do not become a moralist; you will destroy your art and your mind.

John Edward Williams

[F]or contemporary judgment does not recognize that much depth of soul is needed to light up the picture drawn from contemptible life and elevate it into a pearl of creation.

Nikolai Gogol

Can a man be poor if he is free from want, if he does not covet the belongings of others, if he is rich in the possession of God? Rather, he is poor who possesses much but still craves for more.