Quote

Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.

Samuel Johnson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Lexicographer
Linguist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
Politician
Teacher
Translator
Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Minutes
Emulation
Knowledge
Trifles
Might
Advances
Great
Leisure
Make
Useful
Minute
Curiosity
Diverted
Soon
Laborious

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
Knowledge always desires increase, it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but which will afterwards propagate itself.
Samuel Johnson
Image
You may translate books of science exactly. ... The beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written.
Samuel Johnson
Image
No man likes to live under the eye of perpetual disapprobation.
Samuel Johnson
Image
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
Image
Those authors who would find many readers, must endeavour to please while they instruct.
Samuel Johnson
Image
He who praises everybody, praises nobody.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is not often that any man can have so much knowledge of another, as is necessary to make instruction useful.
Samuel Johnson
Image
I am a hardened and shameless tea drinker, who has, for twenty years, diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant whose kettle has scarcely time to cool who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and, with tea, welcomes the morning.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Discord generally operates in little things it is inflamed ... by contrariety of taste oftener than principles.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef love, like being enlivened with champagne.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The balls of sight are so formed, that one man's eyes are spectacles to another, to read his heart with.
Samuel Johnson
Image
A contempt of the monuments and the wisdom of the past, may be justly reckoned one of the reigning follies of these days, to which pride and idleness have equally contributed.
Samuel Johnson
Image
He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Flattery pleases very generally. In the first place, the flatterer may think what he says to be true but, in the second place, whether he thinks so or not, he certainly thinks those whom he flatters of consequence enough to be flattered.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The true effect of genuine politeness seems to be rather ease than pleasure.
Samuel Johnson
Image
In all pleasures hope is a considerable part.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Our senses, our appetite, and our passions are our lawful and faithful guides in things that relate solely to this life.
Samuel Johnson
Image
When making your choice in life, do not neglect to live.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Political liberty is only good insofar as it produces private liberty.
Samuel Johnson
Image
I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.
Samuel Johnson