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Samuel Johnson Quotes - Page 14

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 vicious count their years; virtuous, their acts.

The vicious count their years; virtuous, their acts.

Years, Making A Difference, Charity

Samuel Johnson (2011). “Dictionary of the English Language (Complete and Unabridged)”, p.2238, BookBaby

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. It becomes cheap as it becomes vulgar, and will no longer raise expectation or animate enterprise.

Expectations, Gold, Scarcity

Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.235

A man will turn over half a library to make one book.

Book, Writing, Men

Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 6 Apr. 1775)

Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

Happiness, Animal, Equality

Samuel Johnson, James Boswell (1818). “The table talk of Samuel Johnson”, p.120

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

Happiness, Believe, Long

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.467

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.

Art, Powerful, Criticism

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

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking

Love, Life, Enthusiasm

1750-2 In The Rambler.

Abuse is often of service. There is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence.

Writing, Silence, Abuse

Samuel Johnson (1840). “The Life and Writings of Samuel Johnson...”, p.51

It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.

Book, Fall, Writing

Samuel Johnson (1966). “Johnsonian miscellanies”, Constable

To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.

Happiness, Inner Peace, Trying

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.343

A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected.

Men, Trouble, Habit

Samuel Johnson, A.F. Neuwieller (1857). “The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia: A Tale”, p.38

To make dictionaries is dull work.

Dull, Dictionary

A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

In misery's darkest cavern known, His useful care was ever nigh Where hopeless anguish pour'd his groan, And lonely want retir'd to die.

Lonely, Loneliness, Care

Samuel Johnson (1787). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Together with His Life, and Notes on His Lives of the Poets, by Sir John Hawkins, Knt. In Eleven Volumes ...”, p.366

Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.

Hope, Frustration, Extinction

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy, Francis Pearson Walesby (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D..: The Adventurer and Idler”, p.322

He who would govern his actions by the laws of virtue must regulate his thoughts by those of reason.

Law, Action, Virtue

Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.163, Univ of California Press

Misfortunes should always be expected.

Should, Expected, Misfortunes

A quibble is to Shakespeare what luminous vapours are to the traveller: he follows it at all adventures; it is sure to lead him out of his way and sure to engulf him in the mire.

Adventure, Vapour, Way

'The Plays of William Shakespeare, with Notes' (1765) preface (Yale ed., p. 74)

He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.

Greatness, Thinking, Dull

Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 28 Mar. 1775)

Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.

Book, Paradise, Lost

Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice that we, for the most part, summon our powers to oppose it without very accurate inquiry whether it is right. It is sufficient that another is growing great in his own eyes at our expense, and assumes authority over us without our permission; for many would contentedly suffer the consequences of their own mistakes, rather than the insolence of him who triumphs as their deliverer.

Mistake, Eye, Vanity

Samuel Johnson (1824). “The works of Samuel Johnson”, p.99

Books, says Lord Bacon, can never teach us the use of books; the student must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce his speculations to practice. No man should think so highly of himself as to think he can receive but little light from books; no one so meanly, as to believe he can discover nothing but what is to be learned from them.

Believe, Book, Men

To forget, or pretend to do so, to return a borrowed article, is the meanest sort of petty theft.

Return, Forget, Theft

In sovereignty there are no gradations.

Sovereignty, Monarchy

Thomas M. Curley, Samuel Johnson (1998). “Sir Robert Chambers: Law, Literature, and Empire in the Age of Johnson”, p.121, Univ of Wisconsin Press

Every man may be observed to have a certain strain of lamentation, some peculiar theme of complaint on which he dwells in his moments of dejection.

Men, Peculiar, May

Alexander Pope, William Lisle Bowles, Samuel Johnson, Alexander Chalmers, Gilbert Wakefield (1806). “The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq. in Verse and Prose: Containing the Principal Notes of Drs. Warburton and Warton: Illustrations, and Critical and Explanatory Remarks, by Johnson, Wakefield, A. Chalmers ... and Others; to which are Added, Now First Published, Some Original Letters, with Additional Observations, and Memoirs of the Life of the Author”, p.74

The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.

Appreciation, Appreciate, Approval

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.91

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