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Samuel Johnson Quotes - Page 69

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

The civilities of the great are never thrown away.

The civilities of the great are never thrown away.

Political, Campaigns, Civility

Samuel Johnson (1782). “The Beauties of Johnson: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous ... Second Edition, Enlarged and Corrected, Etc”, p.39

The expense is damnable, the position is ridiculous, and the pleasure fleeting.

Fleeting, Ridiculous, Pleasure

Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.

Night, Giving, Style

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

It is not easy to surround life with any circumstances in which youth will not be delightful.

Youth, Easy, Circumstances

Samuel Johnson (1827). “The Rambler”, p.239

The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth.

Government, Ordinary, Royalty

Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt (1854). “Johnson's Lives of the British poets completed by W. Hazlitt”, p.45

All this [wealth] excludes but one evil, poverty.

Evil, Poverty, Wealth

"Life of Samuel Johnson". Book by James Boswell, 1777.

Fears of the brave and follies of the wise.

Wise, Brave, Prodigies

'The Vanity of Human Wishes' (1749) l. 315

I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to he right.

Reading, Prove It, Prove

'The Plays of William Shakespeare, with Notes' (1765) preface (Yale ed., p. 108)

Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, of sickness, or captivity, would, without this comfort, be insupportable; nor does it appear that the happiest lot of terrestrial existence can set us above the want of this general blessing; or that life, when the gifts of nature and of fortune are accumulated upon it, would not still be wretched, were it not elevated and delighted by the expectation of some new possession, of some enjoyment yet behind, by which the wish shall at last be satisfied, and the heart filled up to its utmost extent.

Heart, Blessing, Filled Up

Samuel Johnson (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.222

Merriment is always the effect of a sudden impression. The jest which is expected is already destroyed.

Jest, Impression, Expected

Samuel Johnson (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.”, p.321

I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, "Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task.

Book, Men, Years

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1859). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.200

An exotic and irrational entertainment, which has been always combated, and always has prevailed.

Exotic, Entertainment, Irrational

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

The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.

Farce, Civility, Scene

Samuel Johnson, Sir John Hawkins (1787). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: The lives of the most eminent English poets, concluded. Miscellaneous lives”, p.585

The desire of advising has a very extensive prevalence; and, since advice cannot be given but to those that will hear it, a patient listener is necessary to the accommodation of all those who desire to be confirmed in the opinion of their own wisdom: a patient listener, however, is not always to be had; the present age, whatever age is present, is so vitiated and disordered, that young people are readier to talk than to attend, and good counsel is only thrown away upon those who are full of their own perfections.

People, Perfection, Advice

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1811). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, L. L. D.: In Twelve Volumes”, p.174

Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition. He that sinks under the fatigue of getting wealth, lulls his age with the milder business of saving it

Wall, Passion, Ambition

Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.262

Scarcely any degree of judgment is sufficient to restrain the imagination from magnifying that on which it is long detained

Long, Imagination, Judging

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1792). “Miscellaneous essays. Political tracts. A journey to the Western Islands of Scotland”, p.100

The gratification of curiosity rather frees us from uneasiness than confers pleasure; we are more pained by ignorance than delighted by instruction. Curiosity is the thirst of the soul; it inflames and torments us, and makes us taste every thing with joy, however otherwise insipid, by which it may be quenched.

Ignorance, Joy, Soul

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1836). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: with an essay on his life and genius”, p.163

Among the lower classes of mankind there will be found very little desire of any other knowledge than what may contribute immediately to the relief of some pressing uneasiness, or the attainment of some near advantage.

Class, Curiosity, Desire

Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.206

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last; and perhaps always predominates in proportion to the strength of the contemplative faculties. He who easily comprehends all that is before him, and soon exhausts any single subject, is always eager for new inquiries; and in proportion as the intellectual eye takes in a wider prospect, it must be gratified with variety, by more rapid flights and bolder excursions.

Passion, Eye, Intellectual

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: with Murphy's essay”, p.135

Curiosity, like all other desires, produces pain as well as pleasure.

Pain, Curiosity, Desire

Samuel Johnson, Hester Lynch Piozzi, James Boswell (1787). “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 Late Productions of Mrs. Piozzi, Mr. Boswell, ...”, p.54

But the distant hope of being one day useful or eminent ought not to mislead us too far from that study which is equally requisite to the great and mean, to the celebrated and obscure; the art of moderating the desires, of repressing the appetites; and of conciliating or retaining the favour of mankind.

Art, Mean, Mislead Us

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1792). “The rambler”, p.233

Those who have past much of their lives in this great city, look upon its opulence and its multitudes, its extent and variety, with cold indifference; but an inhabitant of the remoter parts of the kingdom is immediately distinguished by a kind of dissipated curiosity, a busy endeavour to divide his attention amongst a thousand objects, and a wild confusion of astonishment and alarm.

Past, Cities, Confusion

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy, Francis Pearson Walesby (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D..: The Adventurer and Idler”, p.41

Memory is the primary and fundamental power, without which there could be no other intellectual operation.

Memories, Intellectual, Fundamentals

Samuel Johnson, Peter Martin (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.78, Harvard University Press

Network. Anything reticulated or decussated at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.

Distance, Statistics, Internet

A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

The business of a poet is to examine not the individual but the species; to remark general properties and large appearances.

Statistics, Poet, Individual

"Selected Poetry and Prose".

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