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Samuel Johnson Quotes about Understanding

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Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

Samuel Johnson
Found You, Understanding, Statistics
Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for June 1784)

Books have always a secret influence on the understanding.

Samuel Johnson
Book, Understanding, Secret
Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy, Francis Pearson Walesby (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D..: The Adventurer and Idler”, p.142

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.

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

Before dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding.

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

A simile, to be perfect, must both illustrate and ennoble the subject; must show it to the understanding in a clearer view, and display it to the fancy with greater dignity; but either of these qualities may be sufficient to recommend it.... That it may be complete, it is required to exhibit, independently of its references, a pleasing image; for a simile is said to be a short episode.

Samuel Johnson
Views, Perfect, Understanding
Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt (1854). “Johnson's Lives of the British poets completed by W. Hazlitt”, p.226

Even those to whom Providence has allotted greater strength of understanding, can expect only to improve a single science. In every other part of learning, they must be content to follow opinions, which they are not able to examine; and, even in that which they claim as peculiarly their own, can seldom add more than some small particle of knowledge, to the hereditary stock devolved to them from ancient times, the collective labour of a thousand intellects.

Samuel Johnson
Knowledge, Science, Understanding
Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.199, Univ of California Press

All discourse of which others cannot partake is not only an irksome usurpation of the time devoted to pleasure and entertainment, but, what never fails to excite resentment, an insolent assertion of superiority, and a triumph over less enlightened understandings. The pedant is, therefore, not only heard with weariness but malignity; and those who conceive themselves insulted by his knowledge never fail to tell with acrimony how injudiciously it was exerted.

Samuel Johnson
Understanding, Triumph, Acrimony
Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.196

Even those to whom Providence has allotted greater strength of understanding can expect only to improve a single science.

Samuel Johnson
Understanding, Study, Providence
Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.199, Univ of California Press

It is to be steadily inculcated, that virtue is the highest proof of understanding, and the only solid basis of greatness.

Samuel Johnson
Greatness, Understanding, Virtue
Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.22

The duties of religion, sincerely and regularly performed, will always be sufficient to exalt the meanest and to exercise the highest understanding.

Samuel Johnson
Exercise, Understanding, Religion
Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.105

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