Samuel Johnson Quotes - Page 21

• Wisdom and virtue are by no means sufficient, without the supplemental laws of good-breeding, to secure freedom from degenerating into rudeness, or self esteem from swelling into insolence. A thousand incivilities may be committed, and a thousand offices neglected. without any remorse of conscience, or reproach from reason.

  Samuel Johnson

  Self Esteem, Mean, Law

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay”, p.459

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• Truth has no gradations; nothing which admits of increase can be so much what it is, as truth is truth. There may be a strange thing, and a thing more strange. But if a proposition be true, there can be none more true.

  Samuel Johnson

  Truth, May, Strange

  Samuel Johnson (1833). “The Life of Johnson: with Maxims and Observations: Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous, Accurately Selected from the Works of Dr. Samuel Johnson, and Arranged in Alphabetical Order”, p.269

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• There must always be some advantage on one side or the other, and it is better that advantage should be had by talents than by chance.

  Samuel Johnson

  Sides, Chance, Talent

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1786). “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.29

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• Discord generally operates in little things; it is inflamed ... by contrariety of taste oftener than principles.

  Samuel Johnson

  Principles, Littles, Taste

  Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.247

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• To love their country has been considered as virtue in men, whose love could not be otherwise than blind, because their preference was made without, a comparison; but it has never been my fortune to find, either in ancient or modern writers, any honourable mention of those, who have, with equal blindness, hated their country.

  Samuel Johnson

  Country, Men, Ancient

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1840). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Lives of the poets”, p.426

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• Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Vanity, Names

  Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.252, Univ of California Press

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• There are indeed, in the present corruption of mankind, many incitements to forsake truth: the need of palliating our own faults and the convenience of imposing on the ignorance or credulity of others so frequently occur; so many immediate evils are

  Samuel Johnson

  Ignorance, Evil, Needs

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.166

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• I would advise you, Sir, to study algebra, if you are not an adept already in it: your head would get less muddy, and you will leave off tormenting your neighbours about paper and packthread, while we all live together in a world that is bursting with sin and sorrow.

  Samuel Johnson

  Sorrow, Together, Would Be

  "Johnsoniana, Or, Supplement to Boswell: Being Anecdotes and Sayings of Dr. Johnson".

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• It is our first duty to serve society.

  Samuel Johnson

  Society, Firsts, Duty

  In James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 2, p. 10 (February 1766)

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• It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclusions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the question, they expect to find their own opinion universally prevalent, and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge.

  Samuel Johnson

  Honesty, Men, Want

  Samuel Johnson (1827). “The Rambler”, p.110

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• Solitude is dangerous to reason, without being favourable to virtue. Remember that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad.

  Samuel Johnson

  Mad, Solitude, Remember

  "Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. during the last twenty years of his life".

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• That man is never happy for the present is so true, that all his relief from unhappiness is only forgetting himself for a little while. Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.

  Samuel Johnson

  Life, Men, Progress

  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.45

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• Friendship may well deserve the sacrifice of pleasure, though not of conscience.

  Samuel Johnson

  Sacrifice, May, Pleasure

  Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.58

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• The safe and general antidote against sorrow is employment.

  Samuel Johnson

  Sorrow, Employment, Safe

  Samuel Johnson (1827). “The Rambler”, p.249

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• We seldom learn the true want of what we have till it is discovered that we can have no more.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Want

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay”, p.678

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• Every man may be observed to have a certain strain of lamentation, some peculiar theme of complaint on which he dwells in his moments of dejection.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Peculiar, May

  Alexander Pope, William Lisle Bowles, Samuel Johnson, Alexander Chalmers, Gilbert Wakefield (1806). “The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq. in Verse and Prose: Containing the Principal Notes of Drs. Warburton and Warton: Illustrations, and Critical and Explanatory Remarks, by Johnson, Wakefield, A. Chalmers ... and Others; to which are Added, Now First Published, Some Original Letters, with Additional Observations, and Memoirs of the Life of the Author”, p.74

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• Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. Every advance into knowledge opens new prospects, and produces new incitements to farther progress.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Curiosity, Progress

  Samuel Johnson, William Page (1860). “Life and Writings”, p.37

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• I had done all that I could, and no Man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Done, Littles

  Letter to Lord Chesterfield, in James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 1, p. 261 (7 February 1755)

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• The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.

  Samuel Johnson

  Dream, Reality, Men

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• Among the numerous stratagems by which pride endeavors to recommend folly to regard, there is scarcely one that meets with less success than affectation, or a perpetual disguise of the real character by fictitious appearances.

  Samuel Johnson

  Real, Character, Pride

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.131

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• No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had

  Samuel Johnson

  Wise, Men, Hands

  On Oliver Goldsmith, in James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 4, p. 29 (1780).

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• Words are but the signs of ideas.

  Samuel Johnson

  Ideas

  'A Dictionary of the English Language' (1755) preface.

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• Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Men, Wife

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• Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

  Samuel Johnson

  Children, Way, Better Ways

  Samuel Johnson (2002). “A Johnson Sampler”, Non Pareil Books

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• You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it; for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle.

  Samuel Johnson

  Money, Work, Luxury

  Samuel Johnson, James Boswell (1825). “The Table Talk of Dr. Johnson: Comprising Opinions and Anecdotes of Life and Literature, Men, Manners, and Morals”, p.106

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