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Samuel Johnson Quotes - Page 34

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 relief of enemies has a tendency to unite mankind in fraternal affection.

The relief of enemies has a tendency to unite mankind in fraternal affection.

Enemy, Relief, Affection

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.409

Providence has fixed the limits of human enjoyment by immovable boundaries, and has set different gratifications at such a distance from each other, that no art or power can bring them together. This great law it is the business of every rational being to understand, that life may not pass away in an attempt to make contradictions consistent, to combine opposite qualities, and to unite things which the nature of their being must always keep asunder.

Art, Distance, Law

Samuel Johnson, William Page (1860). “Life and Writings”, p.148

You cannot give me an instance of any man who is permitted to lay out his own time contriving not to have tedious hours.

Men, Giving, Hours

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.176

As all error is meanness, it is incumbent on every man who consults his own dignity, to retract it as soon as he discovers it.

Men, Errors, Dignity

Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.192

No man can have much kindness for him by whom he does not believe himself esteemed, and nothing so evidently proves esteem as imitation.

Kindness, Self Esteem, Believe

Samuel Johnson (1809). “The Rambler”, p.249

Never believe extraordinary characters which you hear of people. Depend upon it, they are exaggerated. You do not see one man shoot a great deal higher than another.

Believe, Character, Men

Samuel Johnson (1997). “The Sayings of Doctor Johnson”, p.13, Gerald Duckworth & Co

Such is the constitution of Man that labor may be said to be its own re-ward.

Exercise, Men, May

He who is extravagant will quickly become poor; and poverty will enforce dependence, and invite corruption.

Extravagance, Poverty, Corruption

Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.21

Profuseness is a cruel and crafty demon, that gradually involves her followers in dependence and debt; that is, fetters them with irons that enter into their souls.

Iron, Soul, Extravagance

Faction seldom leaves a man honest, however it might find him.

Men, Might, Honest

Samuel Johnson (1831). “The Lives of the English Poets: With Critical Observations on Their Works and Lives of Sundry Eminent Persons”, p.34

A few men are sufficient to broach falsehoods, which are afterwards innocently diffused by successive relaters.

Men, Sufficient, Falsehood

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.222

Falsehood always endeavors to copy the mien and attitude of truth.

Attitude, Endeavor, Copies

Large offers and sturdy rejections are among the most common topics of falsehood.

Rejection, Topics, Common

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.378

Fear naturally quickens the flight of guilt.

Fear, Guilt, Flight

Samuel Johnson, A.F. Neuwieller (1857). “The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia: A Tale”, p.12

Timidity is a disease of the mind, obstinate and fatal; for a man once persuaded that any impediment is insuperable has given it, with respect to himself, that strength and weight which it had not before.

Fear, Men, Mind

Samuel Johnson (1827). “The Rambler”, p.153

Of him that hopes to be forgiven it is indispensably required that he forgive. It is, therefore, superfluous to urge any other motive. On this great duty eternity is suspended, and to him that refuses to practise it, the throne of mercy is inaccessible, and the Saviour of the world has been born in vain.

Forgiveness, Forgiving, Thrones

Samuel Johnson (1836). “Johnsoniana; or supplement to Boswell; being Anecdotes and sayings of Dr. Johnson, etc”, p.385

They who look but little into futurity, have, perhaps, the quickest sensation of the present.

Future, Looks, Littles

Samuel Johnson (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.”, p.228

Gaiety is to good-humor as animal perfumes to vegetable fragrance. The one overpowers weak spirits, the other recreates and revives them. Gaiety seldom fails to give some pain; good-humor boasts no faculties which every one does not believe in his own power, and pleases principally by not offending.

Pain, Believe, Animal

Games are good or bad as to their nature; all may be perverted.

Games, May

Genius, that power which constitutes a poet; that quality without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, combines, amplifies and animates.

Quality, Energy, Genius

Samuel Johnson, Peter Cunningham, Thomas Babington Macaulay Baron Macaulay (1861). “Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets”, p.322

It is good sense applied with diligence to what was at first a mere accident, and which by great application grew to be called, by the generality of mankind, a particular genius.

Genius, Firsts, Diligence

Samuel Johnson (1836). “Johnsoniana; or supplement to Boswell; being Anecdotes and sayings of Dr. Johnson, etc”, p.197

Glory, the casual gift of thoughtless crowds! Glory, the bribe of avaricious virtue!

Crowds, Virtue, Glory

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: with Murphy's essay”, p.367

For gold the hireling judge distorts the laws.

Law, Judging, Gold

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.548

Gayety is to good-humor as perfumes to vegetable fragrance: the one overpowers weak spirits; the other recreates and revives them.

Vegetables, Offending, Spirit

Good-humor is a state between gayety and unconcern,--the act or emanation of a mind at leisure to regard the gratification of another.

Mind, Leisure, States

Samuel Johnson (1990). “The Yale Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson: The Rambler”

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