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Samuel Johnson Quotes - Page 55

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

Political liberty is only good insofar as it produces private liberty.

Political liberty is only good insofar as it produces private liberty.

Government, Political, Liberty

Most men are more willing to indulge in easy vices than to practise laborious virtues.

Men, Indulge In, Vices

All unnecessary vows are folly, because they suppose a prescience of the future, which has not been given us.

Unnecessary, Vow, Given

Samuel Johnson (2014). “The Letters of Samuel Johnson, Volume II: 1773-1776”, p.31, Princeton University Press

The king who makes war on his enemies tenderly distresses his subjects most cruelly.

Kings, War, Enemy

Wasting a fortune is evaporation by a thousand imperceptible means.

Mean, Waste, Evaporation

Samuel Johnson (1798). “Dr. Johnson's Table Talk: Containing Aphorisms on Literature, Life, and Manners; with Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons, Selected and Arranged from Dr. Boswell's Life of Johnson”, p.119

To purchase Heaven has gold the power? Can gold remove the mortal hour? In life can love be bought with gold? Are friendship's pleasures to be sold? No--all that's worth a wish--a thought, Fair virtue gives unbribed, unbought. Cease then on trash thy hopes to bind, Let nobler views engage thy mind.

Love Is, Views, Giving

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.554

When the desire of wealth is taking hold of the heart, let us look round and see how it operates upon than whose industry or fortune has obtained it. When we find them oppressed with their own abundance, luxurious without pleasure, idle without ease, impatient and querulous in themselves, and despised or hated by the rest of mankind, we shall soon be convinced that if the real wants of our condition are satisfied, there remains little to be sought with solicitude or desired with eagerness.

Real, Heart, Desire

Whosoever shall look heedfully upon those who are eminent for their riches will not think their condition such as that he should hazard his quiet, and much less his virtue, to obtain it, for all that great wealth generally gives above a moderate fortune is more room for the freaks of caprice, and more privilege for ignorance and vice, a quicker succession of flatteries, and a larger circle of voluptuousness.

Ignorance, Thinking, Circles

Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.69

You never find people laboring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful income.

People, Income, May

Louis Kronenberger, Samuel Johnson, James Boswell (1947). “The Portable Johnson & Boswell”, New York

I believe it will be found that those who marry late are best pleased with their children; and those who marry early, with their partners.

Children, Believe, Wedlock

Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.119, Univ of California Press

Mutual complacency is the atmosphere of conjugal love.

Atmosphere, Complacency, Wedlock

Fate wings, with every wish, the afflictive dart, Each gift of nature, and each grace of art.

Art, Fate, Wings

Samuel Johnson (1811). “The Poetical Works of Samuel Johnson: Collated with the Best Editions”, p.18

The hapless wit has his labors always to begin, the call for novelty is never satisfied, and one jest only raises expectation of another.

Expectations, Novelty, Jest

Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.5

Wit is that which has been often thought, but never before was well expressed.

Wit, Wells, Has Beens

He who would have fine guests, let him have a fine wife.

Wife, Guests, Fine

Being married to those sleepy-souled women is just like playing at cards for nothing: no passion is excited and the time is filled up. I do not, however, envy a fellow one of those honeysuckle wives for my part, as they are but creepers at best and commonly destroy the tree they so tenderly cling about.

Passion, Filled Up, Envy

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1859). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.257

In matters of business, no woman stops at integrity.

Integrity, Women, Matter

Words become low by the occasions to which they are applied, or the general character of them who use them; and the disgust which they produce arises from the revival of those images with which they are commonly united.

Character, Use, Revival

Samuel Johnson (1825). “The works of Samuel Johnson, with Murphy's essay, ed. by R. Lynam”, p.215

Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet.

Purpose, Defeat, Poet

Samuel Johnson (1825). “The Lives of the English Poets”, p.115

The hopes of zeal are not wholly groundless.

Zeal

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1810). “The Works of Samuel Johnson”, p.409

Men have been wise in many different modes; but they have always laughed the same way.

Wise, Men, Different

Unless a woman has an amorous heart, she is a dull companion.

Heart, Dull, Companion

The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing.

Art, Writing, Poetry

Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.304, Univ of California Press

The main of life is composed of small incidents and petty occurrences; of wishes for objects not remote, and grief for disappointments of no fatal consequence.

Life, Disappointment, Grief

Samuel Johnson (1819). “The Beauties of Samuel Johnson: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous”, p.165

To those who have lived long together, everything heard and everything seen recalls some pleasure communicated, some benefit conferred, some petty quarrel or some slight endearment. Esteem of great powers, or amiable qualities newly discovered may embroider a day or a week, but a friendship of twenty years is interwoven with the texture of life.

Friendship, Years, Long

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1888). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Together with A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”

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