Samuel Johnson Quotes about Journey

Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see.

Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see.

Travel, Journey, Inspiring Travel

Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 12 Oct. 1779)

1. Turn all care out of your head as soon as you mount the chaise. 2. Do not think about frugality: your health is worth more than it can cost. 3. Do not continue any day's journey to fatigue. 4. Take now and then a day's rest. 5. Get a smart seasickness if you can. 6. Cast away all anxiety, and keep your mind easy. This last direction is the principal; with an unquiet mind neither exercise, nor diet, nor physic can be of much use.

Samuel Johnson

Smart, Exercise, Journey

Samuel Johnson, Hester Lynch Piozzi (1952). “The Letters of Samuel Johnson with Mrs. Thrale's Genuine Letters to Him: 1775-1782”

Moral sentences appear ostentatious and tumid, when they have no greater occasions than the journey of a wit to his home town: yet such pleasures and such pains make up the general mass of life; and as nothing is little to him that feels it with gre

Samuel Johnson

Pain, Home, Journey

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1799). “Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into North Wales”, p.429

He who sees different ways to the same end, will, unless he watches carefully over his own conduct, lay out too much of his attention upon the comparison of probabilities and the adjustment of expedients, and pause in the choice of his road, till some accident intercepts his journey.

Samuel Johnson

Journey, Choices, Too Much

Samuel Johnson (1793). “The Rambler”, p.304

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.

Samuel Johnson

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

The traveler that resolutely follows a rough and winding path will sooner reach the end of his journey than he that is always changing his direction, and wastes the hour of daylight in looking for smoother ground and shorter passages.

Samuel Johnson

Journey, Daylight, Waste

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy, Francis Pearson Walesby (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D..: The Rambler”, p.304