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Samuel Johnson Quotes - Page 53

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

There is such a difference between the pursuits of men in great cities that one part of the inhabitants lives to little other purpose than to wonder at the rest. Some have hopes and fears, wishes and aversions, which

There is such a difference between the pursuits of men in great cities that one part of the inhabitants lives to little other purpose than to wonder at the rest. Some have hopes and fears, wishes and aversions, which never enter into the thoughts of others, and inquiry is laboriously exerted to gain that which those who possess it are ready to throw away.

Men, Cities, Differences

Samuel Johnson (1836). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.: D., with an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.410

I do not envy a clergyman's life as an easy life, nor do I envy the clergyman who makes it an easy life.

Envy, Easy, Clergymen

Samuel Johnson, Robert ARMITAGE (1850). “Doctor Johnson: his religious life and his death. By the author of “Dr. Hookwell,” etc. [Robert Armitage].”, p.109

One of the most pernicious effects of haste is obscurity.

Haste, Obscurity, Effects

Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.54

The heroes of literary history have been no less remarkable for what they have suffered than for what they have achieved.

Hero, Remarkable, Has Beens

Yet reason frowns in war's unequal game, Where wasted nations raise a single name; And mortgag'd states their grandsire's wreaths regret, From age to age in everlasting debt; Wreaths which at last the dear-bought right convey To rust on medals, or on stones decay.

Regret, War, Hero

Samuel Johnson (1820). “The Poems of Dr. Samuel Johnson. To which is Prefixed, a Life of the Author”, p.36

Hope is an amusement rather than a good, and adapted to none but very tranquil minds.

Hope, Mind, Amusement

Samuel Johnson (1836). “Johnsoniana: Or, Supplement to Boswell: Being Anecdotes and Sayings of Dr. Johnson”, p.61

Ignorance cannot always be inferred from inaccuracy; knowledge is not always present.

Ignorance

Samuel Johnson, Hester Lynch Piozzi, James Boswell (1804). “The beauties of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: consisting of maxims and observations, moral, critical, and miscellaneous: to which are now added biographical anecdotes of the doctor, selected from the works of Mrs. Piozzi;--his Life, recently published by Mr. Boswell, and other authentic testimonies; also his will, and the sermon he wrote for the late Doctor Dodd”, p.238

A man, doubtful of his dinner, or trembling at a creditor, is not much disposed to abstracted meditation, or remote enquiries.

Food, Men, Meditation

'The Lives of the English Poets' (1779-81) 'Collins'

Any of us would kill a cow rather than not have beef.

Food, Cooking, Beef

Samuel Johnson (2010). “Journey to the Hebrides: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland & The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.346, Canongate Books

Everybody loves to have things which please the palate put in their way, without trouble or preparation.

Food, Cooking, Preparation

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1866). “The Life of Samuel Johnson”, p.125

A man has no more right to say an uncivil thing than to act one; no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down.

Men, Rude

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.25

I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much.

Writing, Suffering, Principles

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.342

The man who feels himself ignorant should, at least, be modest.

Ignorance, Men, Ignorant

Samuel Johnson, Hester Lynch Piozzi, James Boswell (1804). “The beauties of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: consisting of maxims and observations, moral, critical, and miscellaneous: to which are now added biographical anecdotes of the doctor, selected from the works of Mrs. Piozzi;--his Life, recently published by Mr. Boswell, and other authentic testimonies; also his will, and the sermon he wrote for the late Doctor Dodd”, p.238

Peevishness may be considered the canker of life, that destroys its vigor and checks its improvement; that creeps on with hourly depredations, and taints and vitiates what it cannot consume.

Vigor, May, Improvement

Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.185, Univ of California Press

Human reason borrowed many arts from the instinct of animals.

Art, Animal, Reason

Samuel Johnson (1841). “The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia: the vanity of human wished: The History of Solÿman and Almena by John Langhorne”, p.41

How gloomy would be the mansions of the dead to him who did not know that he should never die: that what now acts shall continue its agency, and what now thinks shall think on forever!

Thinking, Agency, Forever

Laurence Sterne, Oliver Goldsmith, Samuel Johnson, Henry Mackenzie, Horace Walpole (1823). ““The” Novels Of Sterne, Goldsmith, Dr. Johnson, Mackenzie, Horace Walpole, And Clara Reeve: 5”, p.373

Our senses, our appetite, and our passions are our lawful and faithful guides in things that relate solely to this life.

Passion, Faithful, Guides

Samuel Johnson (1827). “The Rambler”, p.71

To dread no eye and to suspect no tongue is the great prerogative of innocence--an exemption granted only to invariable virtue.

Eye, Tongue, Innocence

Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.78

Irresolution and mutability are often the faults of men whose views are wide, and whose imagination is vigorous and excursive.

Men, Views, Imagination

Samuel Johnson (1789). “The Rambler. ...”, p.56

Rags will always make their appearance where they have a right to do it.

Rags, Laziness, Appearance

Samuel Johnson, James Boswell (1825). “The Table Talk of Dr. Johnson: Comprising Opinions and Anecdotes of Life and Literature, Men, Manners, and Morals”, p.90

Many a man is mad in certain instances, and goes through life without having it perceived. For example, a madness has seized a person of supposing himself obliged literally to pray continually; had the madness turned the opposite way, and the person thought it a crime ever to pray, it might not improbably have continued unobserved.

Men, Opposites, Mad

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.28

A man of sense and education should meet a suitable companion in a wife. It is a miserable thing when the conversation can only be such as whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted, and probably a dispute about that.

Marriage, Men, Wife

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1859). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.172

Among many parallels which men of imagination have drawn between the natural and moral state of the world, it has been observed that happiness as well as virtue consists in mediocrity.

Men, Imagination, Mediocrity

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy, Francis Pearson Walesby (1825). “The Rambler”, p.185

The maxim of Cleobulus, "Mediocrity is best," has been long considered a universal principle, extending through the whole compass of life and nature. The experience of every age seems to have given it new confirmation, and to show that nothing, however specious or alluring, is pursued with propriety or enjoyed with safety beyond certain limits.

Safety, Long, Age

Samuel Johnson (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.68

I inherited a vile melancholy from my father, which has made me mad all my life, at least not sober.

Father, Mad, Sober

In James Boswell 'Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides' (1785) 16 September 1773

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