Samuel Johnson Quotes - Page 63

• The complaint, therefore, that all topicks are preoccupied, is nothing more than the murmur of ignorance or idleness, by which some discourage others, and some themselves; the mutability of mankind will always furnish writers with new images, and the luxuriance of fancy may always embellish them with new decorations.

  Samuel Johnson

  Ignorance, Writing, May

  Samuel Johnson (2003). “Selected Essays”, p.525, Penguin UK

  4 Copy quote

• To exact of every man who writes that he should say something new, would be to reduce authors to a small number; to oblige the most fertile genius to say only what is new, would be to contract his volumes to a few pages. Yet, surely, there ought to be some bounds to repetition; libraries ought no more to be heaped for ever with the same thoughts differently expressed, than with the same books differently decorated.

  Samuel Johnson

  Book, Writing, Men

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

  4 Copy quote

• But, perhaps, the flatterer is not often detected; for an honest mind is not apt to suspect, and no one exerts the power of discernment with much vigour when selflove favors the deceit.

  Samuel Johnson

  Mind, Deceit, Favors

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1857). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.122

  4 Copy quote

• The dependant who cultivates delicacy in himself very little consults his own tranquillity.

  Samuel Johnson

  Delicacy, Littles, Tranquillity

  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.55

  6 Copy quote

• Every desire is a viper in the bosom, who while he was chill was harmless; but when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison.

  Samuel Johnson

  Desire, Poison, Vipers

  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.416

  16 Copy quote

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

  Samuel Johnson

  Future, Looks, Littles

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

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Samuel Johnson

  Pain, Believe, Animal

  4 Copy quote

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

  Samuel Johnson

  Games, May

  4 Copy quote

• 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.

  Samuel Johnson

  Quality, Energy, Genius

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

  7 Copy quote

• 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.

  Samuel Johnson

  Genius, Firsts, Diligence

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

  9 Copy quote

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

  Samuel Johnson

  Crowds, Virtue, Glory

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

  7 Copy quote

• For gold the hireling judge distorts the laws.

  Samuel Johnson

  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

  4 Copy quote

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

  Samuel Johnson

  Vegetables, Offending, Spirit

  7 Copy quote

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

  Samuel Johnson

  Mind, Leisure, States

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

  7 Copy quote

• One of the most pernicious effects of haste is obscurity.

  Samuel Johnson

  Haste, Obscurity, Effects

  Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.54

  6 Copy quote

• The heroes of literary history have been no less remarkable for what they have suffered than for what they have achieved.

  Samuel Johnson

  Hero, Remarkable, Has Beens

  4 Copy quote

• Nothing is more idle than to inquire after happiness, which nature has kindly placed within our reach.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Idle

  Samuel Johnson (2012). “Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia”, p.54, Simon and Schuster

  4 Copy quote

• So scanty is our present allowance of happiness that in many situations life could scarcely be supported if hope were not allowed to relieve the present hour by pleasures borrowed from the future.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Hours, Pleasure

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An essay on his life and genius”, p.175

  4 Copy quote

• Terrestrial happiness is of short duration. The brightness of the flame is wasting its fuel; the fragrant flower is passing away in its own odors.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Flower, Flames

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1857). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.452

  4 Copy quote

• We seldom require more to the happiness of the present hour than to surpass him that stands next before us.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Next, Hours

  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.251

  4 Copy quote

• Words are daughters of earth but ideas are sons of heaven.

  Samuel Johnson

  Daughter, Son, Ideas

  7 Copy quote

• I wish you would add an index rerum, that when the reader recollects any incident he may easily find it.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wish, Add, May

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1868). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including His Tour to the Hebrides, Correspondence with Mrs. Thrale, &c. With Numerous Additions”, p.273

  4 Copy quote

• Every human being whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all that he has to get knowledge.

  Samuel Johnson

  Knowledge, Giving, Mind

  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.530

  7 Copy quote

• The seeds of knowledge may be planted in solitude, but must be cultivated in public.

  Samuel Johnson

  Knowledge, Solitude, May

  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.257

  4 Copy quote

• If misery be the effect of virtue, it ought to be reverenced; if of ill-fortune, to be pitied; and if of vice, not to be insulted, because it is perhaps itself a punishment adequate to the crime by which it was produced.

  Samuel Johnson

  Punishment, Adequate, Vices

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper: Including the Series Edited with Prefaces, Biographical and Critical”, p.267

  7 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

James Boswell

Dick Clark

Alexander Pope

Joshua Reynolds

John Milton

Jonathan Swift

Oliver Goldsmith

Edmund Burke