1 ;;Quote: Johnson found disorder, confusion, adulterations in English without established principles or authorities

2 ;;Quote: constancy and stability has a lasting advantage over the slow improvements of gradual correction

3 ;;Quote: language is only the instrument to science; words are but the signs of ideas; words are the daughters of earth and things are the sons of heaven

3+;;Quote: I wish that words might be permanent, like the things which they denote

6 ;;Quote: nothing can be defined but by words too plain to admit a definition

6+;;Quote: nothing can be proved but the supposing something intuitively known, and evident, without proof

7 ;;Quote: such is the exuberance of signification which many words have obtained, that it is scarcely possible to collect all their senses

7 ;;Quote: examples of the use of words solve the difficulties and defects of defining words

7 ;;Quote: initially, Johnson's quotations were to edify as well as illustrate the use of words; had to expunge the bulk of quotations

7 ;;Quote: words must be sought where they are used; many quotations merely prove the existence of words

9 ;;Quote: to attempt much is always laudable, despite the failures in reaching one's goals

10 ;;Quote: although a lexicographer attempts to embalm a language, words and phrases change their meaning

11 ;;Quote: commerce corrupts the language through frequent contact with strangers; eventually becomes a mingled dialect, a jargon

I.1 ;;Quote: a few examples of Johnson's definitions and quotations