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Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all.
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
Great Moralist
Carry
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson
Life, however short, is made still shorter by waste of time.
Samuel Johnson
Memory is like all other human powers, with which no man can be satisfied who measures them by what he can conceive, or by what he can desire.
Samuel Johnson
To read, write, and converse in due proportions, is, therefore, the business of a man of letters.
Samuel Johnson
There ambush here relentless ruffians lay, And here the fell attorney prowls for prey.
Samuel Johnson
Each person's work is always a portrait of himself.
Samuel Johnson
Composition is for the most part an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.
Samuel Johnson
Nothing is more common than to find men, whose works are now totally neglected, mentioned with praises by their contemporaries as the oracles of their age, and the legislators of science.
Samuel Johnson
It is better to live rich than to die rich.
Samuel Johnson
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
There is ... scarcely any species of writing of which we can tell what is its essence, and what are its constituents every new genius produces some innovation, which, when invented and approved, subverts the rules which the practice of foregoing authors had established.
Samuel Johnson
To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire and answer inquiries, is the business of the scholar
Samuel Johnson
All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.
Samuel Johnson
Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of language.
Samuel Johnson
To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship.
Samuel Johnson
High people, sir, are the best take a hundred ladies of quality, you'll find them better wives, better mothers, more willing to sacrifice their own pleasures to their children, than a hundred other woman.
Samuel Johnson
Tediousness is the most fatal of all faults.
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
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
Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive for a man may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight.
Samuel Johnson
The botanist looks upon the astronomer as a being unworthy of his regard and he that is glowing great and happy by electrifying a bottle wonders how the world can be engaged by trifling prattle about war and peace.
Samuel Johnson
