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Samuel Johnson Quotes - Page 15

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

Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything.

Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything.

Cutting, Evil, Wickedness

Dr. Samuel Johnson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Samuel Johnson (Illustrated)”, p.7965, Delphi Classics

Laws teach us to know when we commit injury and when we suffer it.

Law, Suffering, Injury

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay”, p.611

Locke, whom there is no reason to suspect of being a favorer of idleness or libertinism, has advanced that whoever hopes to employ any part of his time with efficacy and vigor must allow some of it to pass with trifles.

Vigor, Reason, Efficacy

Dishonor waits on perfidy. A man should blush to think a falsehood; it is the crime of cowards.

Men, Thinking, Waiting

"Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 242, 1895.

To prevent evil is the great end of government, the end for which vigilance and severity are properly employed.

Government, Evil, Ends

Samuel Johnson (1827). “The Rambler”, p.48

Friendship, compounded of esteem and love, derives from one its tenderness and its permanence from the other.

Lost Friendship, And Love, Esteem

Samuel Johnson (1848). “The Wisdom of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler”, p.194

Too much nicety of detail disgusts the greatest part of readers, and to throw a multitude of particulars under general heads, and lay down rules of extensive comprehension, is to common understandings of little use.

Writing, Understanding, Littles

Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.206

Beauty, without kindness, dies unenjoyed and undelighting.

Beauty, Kindness, Dies

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.135

To buried merit rise the tardy bust.

Learning, Merit, Buried

Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.

War, May, Young

Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for Spring 1772)

Those who attempt nothing themselves think every thing easily performed, and consider the unsuccessful always as criminal.

Thinking, Criminals, Modesty

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

There is nothing more dreadful to an author than neglect; compared with which reproach, hatred, and opposition are names of happiness; yet this worst, this meanest fate, every one who dares to write has reason to fear.

Writing, Fate, Names

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1828). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.128

Commerce can never be at a stop while one man wants what another can supply; and credit will never be denied, while it is likely to be repaid with profit.

Men, Credit, Want

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

Wisdom and virtue are by no means sufficient, without the supplemental laws of good-breeding, to secure freedom from degenerating into rudeness, or self esteem from swelling into insolence. A thousand incivilities may be committed, and a thousand offices neglected. without any remorse of conscience, or reproach from reason.

Self Esteem, Mean, Law

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay”, p.459

Truth has no gradations; nothing which admits of increase can be so much what it is, as truth is truth. There may be a strange thing, and a thing more strange. But if a proposition be true, there can be none more true.

Truth, May, Strange

Samuel Johnson (1833). “The Life of Johnson: with Maxims and Observations: Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous, Accurately Selected from the Works of Dr. Samuel Johnson, and Arranged in Alphabetical Order”, p.269

There must always be some advantage on one side or the other, and it is better that advantage should be had by talents than by chance.

Sides, Chance, Talent

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.29

The authour who imitates his predecessors only by furnishing himself with thoughts and elegances out of the same general magazine of literature, can with little more propriety be reproached as a plagiary, than the architect can be censured as a mean copier of Angelo or Wren, because he digs his marble out of the same quarry, squares his stones by the same art, and unites them in columns of the same orders.

Art, Mean, Writing

Samuel Johnson (1828). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.278

Those authors who would find many readers, must endeavour to please while they instruct.

Writing, Endeavour, Reader

Samuel Johnson (1806). “Works”, p.34

To read, write, and converse in due proportions, is, therefore, the business of a man of letters.

Writing, Men, Letters

Samuel Johnson (1848). “The Wisdom of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler”, p.419

Languages are the pedigree of nations.

Language, Pedigree, Nations

In James Boswell 'Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides' (1785) 18 September 1773

It was the maxim, I think, of Alphonsus of Aragon, that dead counsellors are safest. The grave puts an end to flattery and artifice, and the information we receive from books is pure from interest, fear, and ambition. Dead counsellors are likewise most instructive, because they are heard with patience and with reverence.

Book, Ambition, Thinking

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy, Francis Pearson Walesby (1825). “The Rambler”, p.410

Those authors are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of prudence.

School, Prudence, Axioms

Samuel Johnson (1810). “The works of the English poets, from Chaucer to Cowper: including the series edited with prefaces, biographical and critical”, p.277

He that voluntarily continues in ignorance, is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces.

Ignorance, Guilty, Crime

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1824). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., Comprehending an Account of His Studies, and Numerous Works, in Chronological Order: A Series of His Epistolary Correspondence and Conversations with Many Eminent Persons; and Various Original Pieces of His Composition, Never Before Published; the Whole Exhibiting a View of Literature and Literary Men in Great Britain, for Near Half a Century During which He Flourished”, p.26

There are three distinct kind of judges upon all new authors or productions; the first are those who know no rules, but pronounce entirely from their natural taste and feelings; the second are those who know and judge by rules; and the third are those who know, but are above the rules. These last are those you should wish to satisfy. Next to them rate the natural judges; but ever despise those opinions that are formed by the rules.

Writing, Judging, Feelings

Samuel Johnson (1961). “The critical opinions of Samuel Johnson”

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.

Men, Vanity, Names

Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.252, Univ of California Press

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