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Samuel Johnson Quotes - Page 30

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

Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy.

Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy.

Hypocrisy, Burden, Villainy

Samuel Johnson (1798). “The Rambler: By Samuel Johnson, LL.D.”, p.108

Jesting, often, only proves a want of intellect.

Want, Intellect, Prove

Of all the griefs that harass the distress'd, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest; Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart, Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart.

Grief, Heart, Fate

Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, Tobias Smollett, George Gilfillan (1855). “The Poetical Works of Johnson: Parnell, Gray, and Smollett, with Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes”, p.22

Nothing is more common than to find men, whose works are now totally neglected, mentioned with praises by their contemporaries as the oracles of their age, and the legislators of science.

Men, Age, Oracles

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1840). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq”, p.167

London! the needy villain's general home, The common sewer of Paris and of Rome! With eager thirst, by folly or by fate, Sucks in the dregs of each corrupted state.

Home, Fate, Rome

Samuel Johnson, Thomas Park (1811). “The poetical works of Samuel Johnson: collated with the best editions”, p.12

Luxury, so far as it reaches the people, will do good to the race of people; it will strengthen and multiply them. Sir, no nation was ever hurt by luxury; for, as I said before; it can reach but a very few.

Hurt, Race, Luxury

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.200

A good wife is like the ivy which beautifies the building to which it clings, twining its tendrils more lovingly as time converts the ancient edifice into a ruin.

Ivy, Wife, Ruins

I believe marriages would in general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the lord chancellor, upon a due consideration of the characters and circumstances, without the parties having any choice in the matter.

Party, Believe, Character

In James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 2, p. 461 (22 March 1776)

It is one of the maxims of the civil law, that definitions are hazardous.

Law, Definitions, Maxims

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.344

As the faculty of writing has chiefly been a masculine endowment, the reproach of making the world miserable has always been thrown upon the women.

Writing, Men, World

Get together a hundred or two men, however sensible they may be, and you are very likely to have a mob.

Men, Two, Together

These papers of the day have uses more adequate to the purposes of common life than more pompous and durable volumes.

Purpose, Use, Paper

Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.215

Occupation alone is happiness.

Occupation

Present opportunities are neglected, and attainable good is slighted, by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages.

Opportunity, Mind, Advantage

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

Pleasure itself is not a vice

Vices, Pleasure

A man guilty of poverty easily believes himself suspected.

Believe, Men, Poverty

Samuel Johnson (1827). “The Rambler”, p.158

None can be pleased without praise, and few can be praised without falsehood.

Praise, Falsehood

Samuel Johnson (1820). “The Rambler”, p.26

The first years of man must make provision for the last.

Men, Years, Lasts

Samuel Johnson (2012). “Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia”, p.45, Simon and Schuster

What is twice read is commonly better remembered that what is transcribed.

Reading, Remembered

To paint things as they are requires a minute attention, and employs the memory rather than the fancy.

Memories, Reality, Attention

Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper”, p.309

He that never labors may know the pains of idleness, but not the pleasures.

Pain, Relaxation, May

To be of no Church is dangerous.

Religion, Church, Dangerous

Samuel Johnson (1811). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, L. L. D.: In Twelve Volumes”, p.134

As every one is pleased with imagining that he knows something not yet commonly divulged, secret history easily gains credit; but it is for the most part believed only while it circulates in whispers, and when once it is openly told, is openly refuted.

Secret, Credit, Scandal

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1836). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: with an essay on his life and genius”, p.224

To tell your own secrets is generally folly, but that folly is without guilt; to communicate those with which we are intrusted is always treachery, and treachery for the most part combined with folly.

Secret, Guilt, Secrecy

The rules that I shall propose concerning secrecy, and from which I think it not safe to deviate without long and exact deliberation, are, never to solicit the knowledge of a secret,--not willingly, nor without many limitations, to accept such confidence when it is offered; when a secret is once admitted, to consider the trust as of a very high nature, important as society and sacred as truth, and therefore not to be violated for any incidental convenience, or slight appearance of contrary fitness.

Thinking, Long, Secret

Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.87

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