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Samuel Johnson Quotes - Page 23

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

$There is something in obstinacy which differs from every other passion. Whenever it fails, it never recovers, but either breaks like iron, or crumbles sulkily away, like a fractured arch. Most other passions have their$

There is something in obstinacy which differs from every other passion. Whenever it fails, it never recovers, but either breaks like iron, or crumbles sulkily away, like a fractured arch. Most other passions have their periods of fatigue and rest, their sufferings and their cure; but obstinacy has no resource, and the first wound is mortal.

Passion, Iron, Suffering

Hunger is never delicate.

Food, Cooking, Hunger

Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.163

Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and far from my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Ionia.

Philosophy, Thinking, Past

'A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland' (1775) 'Inch Kenneth'

Contempt is a kind of gangrene which, if it seizes one part of a character, corrupts all the rest by degrees.

Character, Degrees, Kind

Samuel Johnson (1810). “The works of the English poets, from Chaucer to Cowper”, p.320

An infallible characteristic of meanness is cruelty.

Characteristics, Cruelty, Meanness

Samuel Johnson (1819). “The Beauties of Samuel Johnson: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous”, p.186

It is very common for us to desire most what we are least qualified to obtain.

Desire, Common, Qualified

Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.38

A blaze first pleases and then tires the sight.

Sight, Firsts, Tire

Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt (1854). “Johnson's Lives of the British Poets”, p.155

All power of fancy over reason is a degree of madness.

Degrees, Fancy, Madness

Samuel Johnson (1836). “Johnsoniana; or supplement to Boswell; being Anecdotes and sayings of Dr. Johnson, etc”, p.390

The resolution of the combat is seldom equal to the vehemence of the charge.

Vehemence, Resolution, Combat

Samuel Johnson (1827). “The Rambler”, p.231

In all pleasures hope is a considerable part.

Inspirational, Hope, Hopeful

Samuel Johnson, James Boswell (1807). “Dr. Johnson's table-talk: aphorisms [&c.] selected and arranged from mr. Boswell's life of Johnson”, p.36

There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.

Mind, Tyranny, Thrive

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1799). “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.54

Misery and shame are nearly allied.

Misery, Shame

Samuel Johnson (1820). “The Rambler”, p.180

See nations slowly wise, and meanly just, to buried merit raise the tardy bust.

Wise, Merit, Buried

Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.62, Univ of California Press

Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

Drinking, Wine, Men

Before dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding.

Food, Men, Understanding

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1866). “The Life of Samuel Johnson”, p.24

Club: An assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions.

Clubs, Assembly, Certain

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson, Edmond Malone (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.246

Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for any thing we allow them short of hanging.

Grateful, Race, Insulting

"The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides".

Memory is like all other human powers, with which no man can be satisfied who measures them by what he can conceive, or by what he can desire.

Memories, Men, Desire

Samuel Johnson, Peter Martin (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.83, Harvard University Press

Few of those who fill the world with books, have any pretensions to the hope either of pleasing or instructing. They have often no other task than to lay two books before them, out of which they compile a third, without any new material of their own, and with very little application of judgment to those which former authors have supplied.

Book, Writing, Two

Samuel Johnson (1811). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, L. L. D.: In Twelve Volumes”, p.301

As the greatest liar tells more truths than falsehoods, so may it be said of the worst man, that he does more good than evil.

Liars, Men, Evil

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1859). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.147

To revenge reasonable incredulity by refusing evidence, is a degree of insolence with which the world is not yet acquainted; and stubborn audacity is the last refuge of guilt.

Revenge, Guilt, Degrees

Samuel Johnson (2010). “Journey to the Hebrides: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland & The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.104, Canongate Books

Nothing can be truly great which is not right.

Fairness

A transition from an author's book to his conversation, is too often like an entrance into a large city.

Book, Cities, Transition

Samuel Johnson (1827). “The Rambler”, p.13

The future is bought with the present.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it.

Suffering, Survivor

Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.147

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