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No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
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Literary Critic
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
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Ever
Blockhead
Writing
Blockheads
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Men
Wrote
Except
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Art
Money
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
To go and see one druidical temple is only to see that it is nothing, for there is neither art nor power in it and seeing one is quite enough.
Samuel Johnson
The purpose of a writer is to be read, and the criticism which would destroy the power of pleasing must be blown aside
Samuel Johnson
I have adopted the Roman sentiment, that it is more honorable to save a citizen than to kill an enemy.
Samuel Johnson
Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.
Samuel Johnson
The dependant who cultivates delicacy in himself very little consults his own tranquillity.
Samuel Johnson
The labor of rising from the ground will be great, ... but as we mount higher, the earth's attraction, and the body's gravity, will be gradually diminished till we arrive at a region where the man will float in the air without any tendency to fall.
Samuel Johnson
To live without feeling or exciting sympathy, to be fortunate without adding to the felicity of others, or afflicted without tasting the balm of pity, is a state more gloomy than solitude it is not retreat, but exclusion from mankind. Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.
Samuel Johnson
Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.
Samuel Johnson
Attack is the reaction. I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds.
Samuel Johnson
Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition. He that sinks under the fatigue of getting wealth, lulls his age with the milder business of saving it
Samuel Johnson
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
I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made.
Samuel Johnson
A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.
Samuel Johnson
Cunning has effect from the credulity of others, rather than from the abilities of those who are cunning. It requires no extraordinary talents to lie and deceive.
Samuel Johnson
To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed armies, to gain or to keep unprofitable possessions.
Samuel Johnson
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.
Samuel Johnson
The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.
Samuel Johnson
To read, write, and converse in due proportions, is, therefore, the business of a man of letters.
Samuel Johnson
The pleasure of expecting enjoyment is often greater than that of obtaining it, and the completion of almost every wish is found a disappointment.
Samuel Johnson
No wonder, Sir, that he is vain a man who is perpetually flattered in every mode that can be conceived. So many bellows have blown the fire, that one wonders he is not by this time become a cinder.
Samuel Johnson
