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Samuel Johnson Quotes - Page 37

All Quotes Abstinence Abuse Accidents Achievement Adventure Advertising Affection Age Aging Alcohol Ambition Anxiety Appearance Appreciation Army Arrogance Art Atheism Attitude Authority Being Yourself Belief Benevolence Bitterness Blindness Bravery Business Change Character Charity Childhood Children Choices Church Civility Communication Community Compassion Confidence Consciousness Cooking Corruption Country Courage Crime Criticism Culture Curiosity Darkness Death Deception Defeat Design Desire Determination Devil Difficulty Dignity Disappointment Doubt Drinking Duty Dying Education Effort Elegance Energy English Language Envy Equality Evidence Evil Excellence Exercise Expectations Failing Failure Fame Fashion Fate Fear Feelings Flattery Flight Focus Food Freedom Friends Friendship Funny Future Genius Giving Glory Gold Goodness Grace Gratitude Greatness Grief Grieving Guilt Happiness Hate Hatred Health Heart Heaven History Home Honesty Honor Hope House Humanity Hunger Hurt Husband Hypocrisy Ignorance Imagination Imitation Imperfection Injury Innocence Inspirational Integrity Intelligence Journey Joy Judgement Judging Judgment Justice Kindness Knowledge Labor Language Laughter Laziness Learning Liberty Life Life And Death Life And Love Literature Losing Loss Love Lying Mankind Manners Marriage Meditation Memories Miscarriage Modesty Money Morality Morning Motivational Nature Office Opportunity Originality Overcoming Pain Passion Past Patience Peace Perfection Perseverance Philosophy Pleasure Poetry Politics Positive Positive Thinking Poverty Power Praise Prejudice Preparation Pride Privacy Progress Property Prosperity Prudence Purpose Quality Reading Reality Reflection Regret Rejection Religion Repentance Reputation Resentment Respect Retirement Revenge Revolution Sacrifice Safety Sailing School Science Security Self Esteem Self Love Shame Silence Sin Sleep Sloth Society Solitude Sorrow Soul Spring Struggle Study Stupidity Style Success Suffering Sunshine Talent Teaching Temptation Theatre Time Tragedy Travel Trust Truth Tyranny Uncertainty Understanding Values Violence Virtue Waiting Wall War Water Weakness Wealth Whiskey Wife Wine Winter Wisdom Wit Work Worry Writing Youth

Now ... that you are going to marry, do not expect more from life, than life will afford.

Now ... that you are going to marry, do not expect more from life, than life will afford.

Samuel Johnson, James Boswell (1825). “The Table Talk of Dr. Johnson: Comprising Opinions and Anecdotes of Life and Literature, Men, Manners, and Morals”, p.37

Surely, it is much easier to respect a man who has always had respect, than to respect a man who we know was last year no better than ourselves, and will be no better next year.

Men, Years, Next Year

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson, Edmond Malone (1824). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., Comprehending an Account of His Studies, and Numerous Works, in Chronological Order: A Series of His Epistolary Correspondence and Conversations with Many Eminent Persons; and Various Original Pieces of His Composition, Never Before Published; the Whole Exhibiting a View of Literature and Literary Men in Great Britain, for Near Half a Century During which He Flourished”, p.140

He 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.

Air, Swim, Different

Samuel Johnson (1850). “The history of Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia, a tale”, p.5

The labor of rising from the ground will be great, ... but as we mount higher, the earth's attraction, and the body's gravity, will be gradually diminished till we arrive at a region where the man will float in the air without any tendency to fall.

Fall, Men, Air

Samuel Johnson (1940). “The reader's Johnson: a representative selection from his writings”

If lawyers were to undertake no causes till they were sure they were just, a man might be precluded altogether from a trial of his claim, though, were it judicially examined, it might be found a very just claim.

Inspirational, Motivational, Men

Samuel Johnson (2010). “Journey to the Hebrides: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland & The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.173, Canongate Books

Every cold empirick, when his heart is expanded by a successful experiment, swells into a theorist.

Heart, Successful, Cold

William Shakespeare, Alexander Chalmers, George Steevens, Samuel Johnson, Alexander Pope (1805). “Preface”, p.32

It was the peculiar artifice of Habit not to suffer her power to be felt at first. Those whom she led, she had the address of appearing only to attend, but was continually doubling her chains upon her companions; which were so slender in themselves, and so silently fastened, that while the attention was engaged by other objects, they were not easily perceived. Each link grew tighter as it had been longer worn; and when by continual additions they became so heavy as to be felt, they were very frequently too strong to be broken.

Strong, Broken, Suffering

Samuel Johnson (1836). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.: D., with an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.491

Man is a transitory being, and his designs must partake of the imperfections their author.

Men, Design, Imperfection

Alexander Pope, William Lisle Bowles, Samuel Johnson, Alexander Chalmers, Gilbert Wakefield (1806). “The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq. in Verse and Prose: Containing the Principal Notes of Drs. Warburton and Warton: Illustrations, and Critical and Explanatory Remarks, by Johnson, Wakefield, A. Chalmers ... and Others; to which are Added, Now First Published, Some Original Letters, with Additional Observations, and Memoirs of the Life of the Author”, p.16

Domestic discord is not inevitably and fatally necessary; but yet it is not easy to avoid.

Easy, Discord

Samuel Johnson (18??). “Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia”

Inquiries into the heart are not for man.

Heart, Men, Inquiry

Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets: Cowley. Denham. Milton. Butler. Rochester. Roscommon. Otway. Waller. Pomfret. Dorset. Stepney. J. Phillips. Walsh. Dryden. Smith. Duke. King. Sprat. Halifax. Parnell. Garth. Rowe. Addison. Hughes. Sheffield, duke of Buckinghamshire”, p.248

A newswriter is a man without virtue, who lies at home for his own profit.

Lying, Home, Men

Samuel Johnson (1846). “Works of Samuel Johnson”, p.385

In Shakespeare's plays, the mourner hastening to bury his friend is all the time colliding with the reveller hastening to his wine.

Wine, Play, Shakespeare's Plays

In discussing these exceptions from the course of nature, the first question is, whether the fact be justly stated. That which is strange is delightful, and a pleasing error is not willingly detected.

Errors, Firsts, Facts

Samuel Johnson, Queen Victoria, Neil Munro (2014). “Journeys in Scotland: Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland, Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands, The Clyde: River and Firth”, p.37, Palimpsest Book Production Limited

We found in the course of our journey the convenience of having disencumbered ourselves, by laying aside whatever we could spare; for it is not to be imagined without experience, how in climbing crags and treading bogs, and winding through narrow and obstructed passages, a little bulk will hinder, and a little weight will burden; or how often a man that has pleased himself at home with his own resolution, will, in the hour of darkness and fatigue, be content to leave behind him everything but himself.

Home, Journey, Men

Samuel Johnson (2010). “Journey to the Hebrides: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland & The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.24, Canongate Books

Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible.

Wish, Impossible, Difficult

Quoted in William Seward, Supplement to the Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons (1797)

To wipe all tears from off all faces is a task too hard for mortals; but to alleviate misfortunes is often within the most limited power: yet the opportunities which every day affords of relieving the most wretched of human beings are overlooked and neglected with equal disregard of policy and goodness.

Opportunity, Tears, Tasks

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1837). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq”, p.169

A student may easily exhaust his life in comparing divines and moralists without any practical regard to morals and religion; he may be learning not to live but to reason... while the chief use of his volumes is unthought of, his mind is unaffected, and his life is unreformed.

Mind, Use, May

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1823). “The Works of Samuel Johnson: LL.D. A New Edition in Twelve Volumes. With an Essay on His Life and Genius, by Arthur Murphy, Esq”, p.102

The joy of life is variety.

Joy, Life Is, Joy Of Life

"The Idler" No. 39. Essay by Samuel Johnson, www.gutenberg.org. January 13, 1759.

A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately after his wife died; it was the triumph of hope over experience.

Wife, Gentleman, Unhappy

Samuel Johnson, James Boswell (1825). “The Table Talk of Dr. Johnson: Comprising Opinions and Anecdotes of Life and Literature, Men, Manners, and Morals”, p.40

Whisky making is the art of making poison pleasant

Art, Poison, Whisky

..to write and to live are very different. Many who praise virtue, do no more than praise it.

Writing, Different, Praise

Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper: Including the Series Edited with Prefaces, Biographical and Critical”, p.505

Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities, superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world; and, whatever apparent disadvantages he may suffer in the comparison with others, he has some invisible distinctions, some latent reserve of excellence, which he throws into the balance, and by which he generally fancies that it is turned in his favour.

Men, Suffering, Excellence

Samuel Johnson, Peter Martin (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.178, Harvard University Press

Nobody can be taught faster than he can learn.

Taught, Faster

Samuel Johnson (1804). “The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland: And a Criticism on Their Works”, p.53

We often look with indifference on the successive parts of something that, if the whole were seen together, would shake us with emotion.

Together, Looks, Emotion

Samuel Johnson, Peter Martin (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.229, Harvard University Press

True enjoyments also keep people from vice.

People, Vices, Enjoyment

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