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I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Bookseller
Essayist
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson
Spite and ill-nature are among the most expensive luxuries in life.
Samuel Johnson
Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause a while from learning to be wise. There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,- Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.
Samuel Johnson
[The poet] must write as the interpreter of nature and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of future generations, as a being superior to time and place.
Samuel Johnson
I fly from pleasure, said the prince, because pleasure has ceased to please I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others.
Samuel Johnson
Patience and submission are very carefully to be distinguished from cowardice and indolence. We are not to repine, but we may lawfully struggle for the calamities of life, like the necessities of Nature, are calls to labor and diligence.
Samuel Johnson
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
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
In general those parents have the most reverence who most deserve it for he that lives well cannot be despised.
Samuel Johnson
Hoc age ['do this'] is the great rule, whether you are serious or merry whether ... learning science or duty from a folio, or floating on the Thames. Intentions must be gathered from acts.
Samuel Johnson
The first step to greatness is to be honest.
Samuel Johnson
Who left nothing of authorship untouched, and touched nothing which he did not adorn. [Lat., Qui nullum fere scribendi genus non tetigit nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.]
Samuel Johnson
It is wonderful what a difference learning makes upon people even in the common intercourse of life, which does not appear to be much connected with it.
Samuel Johnson
It seems to be remarkable that death increases our veneration for the good, and extenuates our hatred for the bad.
Samuel Johnson
The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.
Samuel Johnson
Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression we must always purpose to do more or better than in time past.
Samuel Johnson
What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of the rest of the company.
Samuel Johnson
Life, however short, is made still shorter by waste of time.
Samuel Johnson
If useless thoughts could be expelled from the mind, all the valuable parts of our knowledge would more frequently recur.
Samuel Johnson
None of the projects or designs which exercise the mind of man are equally subject to obstructions and disappointments with the pursuit of fame.
Samuel Johnson
It is a hopeless endeavour to unite the contrarieties of spring and winter it is unjust to claim the privileges of age, and retain the play-things of childhood.
Samuel Johnson
