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Samuel Johnson Quotes - Page 10

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

A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.

A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.

Food, Thinking, Men

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1786). “Boswell's Life of Johnson: including Boswell's Journal of a tour of the Hebrides, and Johnson's diary of A journey into North Wales”, p.390

Books have always a secret influence on the understanding.

Book, Understanding, Secret

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

How small of all that human hearts endure/That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.

Kings, Heart, Law

Lines added to Oliver Goldsmith's The Traveller (1764)

As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.

Happiness, Men, Good Man

Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for Sept. 1783)

How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?

History, Cynical, Liberty

Taxation No Tyranny (1775)

He that outlives a wife whom he has long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same hopes, and fears, and interest; from the only companion with whom he has shared much good and evil; and with whom he could set his mind at liberty, to retrace the past or anticipate the future. The continuity of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and action is stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless.

Love, Past, Long

Samuel Johnson (2002). “A Johnson Sampler”, Non Pareil Books

There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.

Gratitude, Pain, Revenge

'The Rambler' no. 87 (15 January 1751)

As the mind must govern the hands, so in every society the man of intelligence must direct the man of labor.

Men, Hands, Intelligence

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1801). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.”, p.317

To mean understandings, it is sufficient honour to be numbered amongst the lowest labourers of learning; but different abilities must find different tasks. To hew stone, would have been unworthy of Palladio; and to have rambled in search of shells and flowers, had but ill suited with the capacity of Newton.

Flower, Mean, Science

Samuel Johnson (1823). “The Works of Samuel Johnson: LL.D. A New Edition in Twelve Volumes. With an Essay on His Life and Genius, by Arthur Murphy, Esq”, p.76

A mere literary man is a dull man; a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man; but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.

Respect, Selfish, Men

Samuel Johnson (1836). “Johnsoniana: Or, Supplement to Boswell: Being Anecdotes and Sayings of Dr. Johnson”, p.416

Exercise is labor without weariness.

Fitness, Exercise, Labor

To neglect at any time preparation for death is to sleep on our post at a siege; to omit it in old age is to sleep at an attack.

Death, Sleep, Preparation

The Rambler no. 78 (15 Dec. 1750)

The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.

Memories, Two, Office

Samuel Johnson (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.”, p.279

I know not any crime so great that a man could contrive to commit as poisoning the sources of eternal truth.

Men, Crime, Source

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.24

Poverty has, in large cities, very different appearances; it is often concealed in splendour, and often in extravagance.

Cities, Different, Extravagance

Samuel Johnson (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.303, Harvard University Press

No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.

Appreciation, Spring, Flower

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

There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.

Friendship, Confidence, Honesty

Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.113

A successful author is equally in danger of the diminution of his fame, whether he continues or ceases to write. The regard of the public is not to be kept but by tribute, and the remembrance of past service will quickly languish unless successive performances frequently revive it. Yet in every new attempt there is new hazard, and there are few who do not, at some unlucky time, injure their own characters by attempting to enlarge them.

Writing, Character, Successful

Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.39

Every man has some favorite topic of conversation, on which, by a feigned seriousness of attention, he may be drawn to expatiate without end.

Men, Attention, May

Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.299

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore equally destructive to happiness with the diminution of possession, and he that teaches another to long for what he never shall obtain is no less an enemy to his quiet than if he had robbed him of part of his patrimony

Men, Rich Or Poor, Long

Samuel Johnson (1824). “Works: With an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.135

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

Carpe Diem, Men, Identity

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1859). “The Life of Samuel Johnson”, p.125

The longer we live the more we think and the higher the value we put on friendship and tenderness towards parents and friends.

Good Life, Father, Thinking

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

Mistake, Drinking, Food

"Life of Samuel Johnson". Book by James Boswell. Volume II, p. 659, 1791.

Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.

Revenge, Passion, Justice

Samuel Johnson, John Walker (1827). “A Dictionary of the English Language”, p.617

Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world.

Mean, Liberty, Rising

In James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 2, p. 369 (18 April 1775)

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