Samuel Johnson Quotes - Page 68

Quotes about:

Abstinence Abuse Accidents Achievement Adventure Advertising Affairs

The wickedness of a loose or profane author is more atrocious than that of a giddy libertine or drunken ravisher, not only because it extends its effects wider, as a pestilence that taints the air is more destructive than poison infused in a draught, but because it is committed with cool deliberation.

Samuel Johnson

Writing, Air, Poison

Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.123

6 Copy quote
The faults of a writer of acknowledged excellence are more dangerous, because the influence of his example is more extensive; and the interest of learning requires that they should be discovered and stigmatized, before they have the sanction of antiquity conferred upon them, and become precedents of indisputable authority.

Samuel Johnson

Writing, Excellence, Example

Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Hester Mulson Chapone, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1785). “The Rambler”, p.212

4 Copy quote
To scatter praise or blame without regard to justice is to destroy the distinction of good and evil. Many have no other test of actions than general opinion; and all are so far influenced by a sense of reputation that they are often restrained by fear of reproach, and excited by hope of honour, when other principles have lost their power.

Samuel Johnson

Evil, Justice, Principles

Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.235

4 Copy quote
When the original is well chosen and judiciously copied, the imitator often arrives at excellence which he could never have attained without direction; for few are formed with abilities to discover new possibilities of excellence, and to distinguish themselves by means never tried before.

Samuel Johnson

Mean, Excellence, Influence

Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.23

4 Copy quote
The faults of a man loved or honoured sometimes steal secretly and imperceptibly upon the wise and virtuous, but by injudicious fondness or thoughtless vanity are adopted with design.

Samuel Johnson

Wise, Men, Vanity

Samuel Johnson (1820). “The Rambler”, p.338

4 Copy quote
No man, however enslaved to his appetites, or hurried by his passions, can, while he preserves his intellects unimpaired, please himself with promoting the corruption of others. He whose merit has enlarged his influence would surely wish to exert it for the benefit of mankind. Yet such will be the effect of his reputation, while he suffers himself to indulge in any favourite fault, that they who have no hope to reach his excellence will catch at his failings, and his virtues will be cited to justify the copiers of his vices.

Samuel Johnson

Passion, Men, Indulge In

Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.283

4 Copy quote
Let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known.

Samuel Johnson

Country, Evil, Let Him Go

In James Boswell 'Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides' (1785) 18 August 1773 (Boswell having asked if someone should commit suicide to avoid certain disgrace)

4 Copy quote
Men become friends by a community of pleasures.

Samuel Johnson

Men, Community, Pleasure

Samuel Johnson (1797). “The Beauties of Samuel Johnson, Etc. (A New Edition, Being the Ninth.).”, p.98

4 Copy quote
You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.

Samuel Johnson

Writing, Abuse, Criticism

On literary criticism, in James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 1, p. 409 (25 June 1763)

7 Copy quote
It may be laid down as a position which seldom deceives, that when a man cannot bear his own company, there is something wrong.

Samuel Johnson

Men, Solitude, May

Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.27

7 Copy quote
For life affords no higher pleasure, than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified. He that labours in any great or laudable undertaking, has his fatigues first supported by hope, and afterwards rewarded by joy... To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.

Samuel Johnson

Motivational, Joy, Wish

"The Wisdom of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler".

4 Copy quote
The world is not yet exhausted: let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.

Samuel Johnson

World, Saws, Anticipation

Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.148, Univ of California Press

7 Copy quote
We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

Samuel Johnson

Dream, Marketing, Vat

Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 6 Apr. 1781)

5 Copy quote
This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.

Samuel Johnson

Food, Men, Dinner

Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 31 July 1763)

7 Copy quote
As to precedents, to be sure they will increase in course of time; but the more precedents there are, the less occasion is there for law; that is to say, the less occasion is there for investigating principles.

Samuel Johnson

Law, Principles, Increase

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.145

6 Copy quote
Sir, it is wrong to stir up law-suits; but when once it is certain that a law-suit is to go on, there is nothing wrong in a lawyer's endeavouring that he shall have the benefit, rather than another.

Samuel Johnson

Law, Goes On, Benefits

James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (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.408

4 Copy quote
There ambush here relentless ruffians lay, And here the fell attorney prowls for prey.

Samuel Johnson

Law, Ruffian, Relentless

Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper: Including the Series Edited with Prefaces, Biographical and Critical”, p.571

4 Copy quote
To embarrass justice by multiplicity of laws, or to hazard it by confidence in judges, seem to be the opposite rocks on which all civil institutions have been wrecked, and between which legislative wisdom has never yet found an open passage.

Samuel Johnson

Rocks, Law, Opposites

Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1837). “Lives of the poets. Lives of eminent persons. Political tracts. Philological tracts. Miscellaneous tracts. Dedications. Opinions on questions of law. Reviews and criticisms. Journey to the Western islands of Scotland. Prayers and meditations”, p.363

9 Copy quote
Sir, what is poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is; but it is not easy to tell what it is.

Samuel Johnson

Light, Poetry, Easy

In James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 3, p. 38 (12 April 1776)

4 Copy quote
Fly-fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.

Samuel Johnson

Funny, Humor, Rivers

Attributed, in Hawker 'Instructions to Young Sportsmen' (1859) p. 197, though not found in Johnson's works. 'Notes and Queries' 11 December 1915

9 Copy quote
He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale.

Samuel Johnson

Names, World, Moral

'The Vanity of Human Wishes' (1749) l. 219 (on Charles XII of Sweden)

8 Copy quote
To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which one of the Fathers observes to be not a virtue, but the groundwork of virtue.

Samuel Johnson

Mind, Virtue, Abstinence

"The Idler: With Additional Essays".

11 Copy quote
If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.

Samuel Johnson

Thinking, House, Vices

Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 14 July 1763)

7 Copy quote
Bias and impartiality is in the eye of the beholder.

Samuel Johnson

Eye, Perspective, Beholder

11 Copy quote
...a common observation, that few are mended by imprisonment, and that he, whose crimes have made confinement necessary, seldom makes any other use of his enlargement, than to do, with greater cunning, what he did before with less.

Samuel Johnson

Jail, Use, Enlargement

Samuel Johnson, John Hawkins (1787). “The Works: Together With His Life, And Notes On His Life Of The Poets”, p.6

4 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Joshua Reynolds

Oliver Goldsmith

Samuel Johnson

Follow

Born: September 18, 1709
Died: December 13, 1784
Occupation: Writer
Cite this Page: Citation

Popular Topics