Samuel Johnson Quotes - Page 9

• To hear complaints is wearisome alike to the wretched and the happy.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Complaints, Wretched

  Samuel Johnson, Abraham Raimbach, Robert Smirke (1819). “Rasselas”, p.133

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• In the motive lies the good or ill.

  Samuel Johnson

  Lying, Motive, Ill

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• No man hates him at whom he can laugh.

  Samuel Johnson

  Hate, Men, Hate Him

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• Wine gives great pleasure; and every pleasure is of itself a good. It is a good, unless counterbalanced by evil.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wine, Evil, Giving

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1866). “The Life of Samuel Johnson”, p.220

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• The number of such as live without the ardour of inquiry is very small, though many content themselves with cheap amusements, and waste their lives in researches of no importance.

  Samuel Johnson

  Knowledge, Numbers, Inquiry

  Samuel Johnson, William P. Page (1840). “The Life and Writings of Samuel Johnson...”, p.40

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• Reason will by degrees submit to absurdity, as the eye is in time accommodated to darkness.

  Samuel Johnson

  Eye, Darkness, Degrees

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• Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore equally destructive to happiness with the diminution of possession, and he that teaches another to long for what he never shall obtain is no less an enemy to his quiet than if he had robbed him of part of his patrimony

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Rich Or Poor, Long

  Samuel Johnson (1824). “Works: With an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.135

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• The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.

  Samuel Johnson

  Determination, Luck, Mind

  'The Lives of the English Poets' (1779-81) 'Cowley'

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• No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.

  Samuel Johnson

  Hypocrite, Men, Hypocrisy

  In James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 4, p. 316 (June 1784).

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• Tea's proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence.

  Samuel Johnson

  Exercise, Cake, Tea Drinking

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay”, p.653

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• To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition.

  Samuel Johnson

  Gratitude, Home, Ambition

  Samuel Johnson (1824). “The works of Samuel Johnson”, p.431

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• He that would travel for the entertainment of others, should remember that the great object of remark is human life. Every Nation has something peculiar in its Manufactures, its Works of Genius, its Medicines, its Agriculture, its Customs, and its Policy. He only is a useful Traveller, who brings home something by which his country may be benefited; who procures some supply of Want, or some mitigation of Evil, which may enable his readers to compare their condition with that of others, to improve it whenever it is worse, and whenever it is better to enjoy it.

  Samuel Johnson

  Country, Home, Medicine

  "The Idler".

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• It is a maxim that no man was ever enslaved by influence while he was fit to be free.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Influence, Fit

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• As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Men, Good Man

  Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for Sept. 1783)

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• The task of an author is, either to teach what is not known, or to recommend known truths by his manner of adorning them; either to let new light in upon the mind, and open new scenes to the prospect, or to vary the dress and situation of common objects, so as to give them fresh grace and more powerful attractions, to spread such flowers over the regions through which the intellect has already made its progress, as may tempt it to return, and take a second view of things hastily passed over, or negligently regarded.

  Samuel Johnson

  Powerful, Flower, Writing

  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.14

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• At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.

  Samuel Johnson

  Birthday, Time, Age

  'A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland' (1775) 'Col'

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• Our minds, like our bodies, are in continual flux; something is hourly lost, and something acquired.... Do not suffer life to stagnate; it will grow muddy for want of motion: commit yourself again to the current of the world.

  Samuel Johnson

  Mind, Suffering, World

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1820). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: A New Edition in Twelve Volumes, to which is Prefixed, an Essay on His Life and Genius, by Arthur Murphy, Esq. Containing Adventurer and Rasselas”, p.397

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• Read over your compositions and whenever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Writing, Thinking

  "The Sayings of Doctor Johnson".

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• A married man has many cares, but a bachelor no pleasures.

  Samuel Johnson

  Marriage, Men, Care

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• That observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, World, Found

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.7

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• There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.

  Samuel Johnson

  Friendship, Confidence, Honesty

  Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.113

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• Most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould them.

  Samuel Johnson

  Hands, Mind, Influence

  Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.87

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• It is no matter what you teach them first, any more than what leg you shall put into your breeches first. You may stand disputing which is best to put in first, but in the mean time your breech is bare. Sir, while you are considering which of two things you should teach your child first, another boy has learned them both.

  Samuel Johnson

  Education, Children, Mean

  Samuel Johnson (1807). “Dr. Johnson's Table-talk: Containing Aphorisms on Literature, Life, and Manners, with Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons, Selected and Arranged from Mr. Boswell's Life of Johnson”, p.59

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• Riches exclude only one inconvenience,--that is, poverty.

  Samuel Johnson

  Riches, Poverty, Inconvenience

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• He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind than the strokes of the oar; and many fold in their passage; while they lie waiting for the gale.

  Samuel Johnson

  Life, Lying, Wind

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