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Samuel Johnson Quotes - Page 44

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

I fly from pleasure, said the prince, because pleasure has ceased to please; I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others.

"I fly from pleasure," said the prince, "because pleasure has ceased to please; I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others."

Happiness, Lonely, Loneliness

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.458

To tell of disappointment and misery, to thicken the darkness of futurity, and perplex the labyrinth of uncertainty, has been always a delicious employment of the poets

Disappointment, Darkness, Labyrinth

Samuel Johnson (2009). “The Lives of the Poets: A Selection”, p.422, OUP Oxford

Those who are in the power of evil habits must conquer them as they can; and conquered they must be, or neither wisdom nor happiness can be attained: but those who are not yet subject to their influence may, by timely caution, preserve their freedom.

Evil, May, Influence

Samuel Johnson (1848). “The Wisdom of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler”, p.140

Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult.

Men, Sloth, Calling

Samuel Johnson, Francis Pearson Walesby, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson: Reviews, politica. tracts, and lives of eminent persons”, p.285

There is no kind of idleness by which we are so easily seduced as that which dignifies itself by the appearance of business.

Business, Sloth, Laziness

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy, Francis Pearson Walesby (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D..: The Adventurer and Idler”, p.291

I soon found that wit, like every other power, has its boundaries; that its success depends upon the aptitude of others to receive impressions; and that as some bodies, indissoluble by heat, can set the furnace and crucible at defiance, there are min

Crucible, Body, Limits

Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most.

Respect, Men, Giving

Samuel Johnson, James Boswell (1825). “The Table Talk of Dr. Johnson: Comprising Opinions and Anecdotes of Life and Literature, Men, Manners, and Morals”, p.119

Prudence is an attitude that keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy.

Attitude, Doe, Safe

To expect that the intricacies of science will be pierced by a careless glance, or the eminences of fame ascended without labour, is to expect a peculiar privilege, a power denied to the rest of mankind; but to suppose that the maze is inscrutable to diligence, or the heights inaccessible to perseverance, is to submit tamely to the tyranny of fancy, and enchain the mind in voluntary shackles.

Perseverance, Mind, Privilege

Samuel Johnson (1820). “The Rambler”, p.197

Books have always a secret influence on the understanding; we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas; he that reads books of science, thogh without any fixed desire of improvement, will grow more knowing.

Book, Knowledge, Science

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy, Francis Pearson Walesby (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D..: The Adventurer and Idler”, p.142

Even those to whom Providence has allotted greater strength of understanding, can expect only to improve a single science. In every other part of learning, they must be content to follow opinions, which they are not able to examine; and, even in that which they claim as peculiarly their own, can seldom add more than some small particle of knowledge, to the hereditary stock devolved to them from ancient times, the collective labour of a thousand intellects.

Knowledge, Science, Understanding

Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.199, Univ of California Press

Learn the leading precognita of all things-no need to turn over leaf by leaf, but grasp the trunk hard and you will shake all the branches. Advice cherished by Samuel Johnson that that, if one is to master any subject, one must first discover its general principles.

Knowledge, Advice, Principles

Hoc age ['do this'] is the great rule, whether you are serious or merry; whether ... learning science or duty from a folio, or floating on the Thames. Intentions must be gathered from acts.

Science, Age, Serious

I will venture to say there is more learning and science within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit [in London], than in all the rest of the kingdom.

Learning, Science, Venture

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (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.66

If a man has a science to learn he must regularly and resolutely advance.

Science, Men, Accounts

Samuel Johnson, James Boswell (1825). “The Table Talk of Dr. Johnson: Comprising Opinions and Anecdotes of Life and Literature, Men, Manners, and Morals”, p.264

Nothing has tended more to retard the advancement of science than the disposition in vulgar minds to vilify what they cannot comprehend.

Learning, Science, Mind

There prevails among men of letters, an opinion, that all appearance of science is particularly hateful to Women; and that therefore whoever desires to be well received in female assemblies, must qualify himself by a total rejection of all that is serious, rational, or important; must consider argument or criticism as perpetually interdicted; and devote all his attention to trifles, and all his eloquence to compliment.

Science, Men, Rejection

Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.297

People have now a-days got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do as much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken.

Book, Taken, Reading

Samuel Johnson, James Boswell (1825). “The Table Talk of Dr. Johnson: Comprising Opinions and Anecdotes of Life and Literature, Men, Manners, and Morals”, p.55

Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent.

Historical, Mind, Penetration

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.373

In a man's letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process. Nothing is inverted, nothing distorted, you see systems in their elements, you discover actions in their motives.

Lying, Men, Mirrors

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1857). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.519

A short letter to a distant friend is, in my opinion, an insult like that of a slight bow or cursory salutation - a proof of unwillingness to do much, even where there is a necessity of doing something.

Letters, Bows, Opinion

Samuel Johnson (2014). “The Letters of Samuel Johnson, Volume I: 1731-1772”, p.196, Princeton University Press

Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.

Two, Bores You, Sick

Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for May 1776)

Smoking is a shocking thing - blowing smoke out of our mouths into other people's mouths, eyes, and noses, and having the same thing done to us.

Eye, People, Smoking

Samuel Johnson (2010). “Journey to the Hebrides: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland & The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.198, Canongate Books

Courtesy and good-humour are often found with little real worth.

Real, Littles, Courtesy

"The Lives of the Most Eminent Poets: With Critical Observations on Their Works".

A transition from an author's book to his conversation is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur, and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke.

Fear, Book, Writing

Samuel Johnson (1827). “The Rambler”, p.13

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