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Samuel Johnson Quotes about Pain

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It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

Trust, Cheating, Pain

Samuel Johnson (1752). “The Rambler”, p.79

I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.

Dog, Pain, Portraits

Quoted in Mrs Piozzi Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson (1786).

Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.

Pain, Thinking, Feels

The Rambler No. 48, 1 September (1750)

Hope itself is a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords; but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain.

Hope, Pain, Excess

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.426

There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.

Gratitude, Pain, Revenge

'The Rambler' no. 87 (15 January 1751)

There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.

Pain, Community, Care

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

If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?

Pain, Pleasure, Ifs

Samuel Johnson (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.”, p.412

Moral sentences appear ostentatious and tumid, when they have no greater occasions than the journey of a wit to his home town: yet such pleasures and such pains make up the general mass of life; and as nothing is little to him that feels it with gre

Pain, Home, Journey

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1799). “Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into North Wales”, p.429

The common people do not accurately adapt their thoughts to objects; nor, secondly, do they accurately adapt their words to their thoughts; they do not mean to lie; but, taking no pains to be exact, they give you very false accounts. A great part of their language is proverbial; if anything rocks at all, they say it rocks like a cradle; and in this way they go on.

Pain, Lying, Mean

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.133

Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. he whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.

Friendship, Pain, Kindness

In James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 4, p. 115 (May 1781)

That distrust which intrudes so often on your mind is a mode of melancholy, which, if it be the business of a wise man to be happy, it is foolish to indulge; and if it be a duty to preserve our faculties entire for their proper use, it is criminal. Suspicion is very often an useless pain.

Wise, Pain, Men

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.132

Why, sir, Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, Sir, is not in Nature.

Pain, Stupid, Taken

On Thomas Sheridan, in James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 1, p. 453 (28 July 1763)

Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

Marriage, Wedding, Pain

Rasselas ch. 26 (1759)

The mind is seldom quickened to very vigorous operations but by pain, or the dread of pain. We do not disturb ourselves with the detection of fallacies which do us no harm.

Pain, Mind, Harm

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.373

Pain and disease awaken us to convictions which are necessary to our moral condition.

Pain, Disease, Moral

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

Pain, Relaxation, May

Every man is of importance to himself, and, therefore, in his own opinion, to others; and, supposing the world already acquainted with his pleasures and his pains, is perhaps the first to publish injuries or misfortunes which had never been known unless related by himself, and at which those that hear them will only laugh, for no man sympathises with the sorrows of vanity.

Pain, Writing, Men

Samuel Johnson (1810). “The works of the English poets, from Chaucer to Cowper: including the series edited with prefaces, biographical and critical”, p.78

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

Every man that has felt pain knows how little all other comforts can gladden him to whom health is denied. Yet who is there does not sometimes hazard it for the enjoyment of an hour?

Pain, Health, Men

Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.100

Ease, a neutral state between pain and pleasure ... if it is not rising into pleasure will be falling towards pain.

Pain, Fall, Rising

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy, Francis Pearson Walesby (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D..: The Rambler”, p.399

We suffer equal pain from the pertinacious adhesion of unwelcome images, as from the evanescence of those which are pleasing and useful.

Pain, Suffering, Evanescence

Samuel Johnson (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.81, Harvard University Press

It is a common error, and the greater and more mischievous for being so common, to believe that repentance best becomes and most concerns dying men. Indeed, what is necessary every hour of our life is necessary in the hour of death too, and as long as one lives he will have need of repentance, and therefore it is necessary in the hour of death too; but he who hath constantly exercised himself in it in his health and vigor, will do it with less pain in his sickness and weakness; and he who hath practiced it all his life, will do it with more ease and less perplexity in the hour of his death.

Pain, Believe, Men

To live without feeling or exciting sympathy, to be fortunate without adding to the felicity of others, or afflicted without tasting the balm of pity, is a state more gloomy than solitude; it is not retreat, but exclusion from mankind. Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

Pain, Solitude, Feelings

Rasselas ch. 26 (1759)

Social sorrow loses half its pain.

Pain, Sorrow, Half

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.347

To grieve for evils is often wrong; but it is much more wrong to grieve without them. All sorrow that lasts longer than its cause is morbid, and should be shaken off as an attack of melancholy, as the forerunner of a greater evil than poverty or pain.

Pain, Grieving, Evil

Samuel Johnson (2014). “The Letters of Samuel Johnson, Volume III: 1777-1781”, p.128, Princeton University Press

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