Quote

There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.

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
Reach
Either
Cannot
Seize
May
Prudence
Great
Opposed
Much
Goods
Pass
Distance

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order. - John V. Lindsay No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is much easier not to write like a man than to write like a woman.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The hapless wit has his labors always to begin, the call for novelty is never satisfied, and one jest only raises expectation of another.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Abuse is often of service. There is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence.
Samuel Johnson
Image
At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The hopes of zeal are not wholly groundless.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Every reader should remember the diffidence of Socrates, and repair by his candour the injuries of time: he should impute the seeming defects of his author to some chasm of intelligence, and suppose that the sense which is now weak was once forcible
Samuel Johnson
Image
I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to he right.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Some people wave their dogmatic thinking until their own reason is entangled.
Samuel Johnson
Image
A newswriter is a man without virtue, who lies at home for his own profit.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Those that have done nothing in life, are not qualified to judge of those that have done little
Samuel Johnson
Image
Being reproached for giving to an unworthy person, Aristotle said, I did not give it to the man, but to humanity.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Golf is a game in which you claim the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood.
Samuel Johnson
Image
I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Art hath an enemy called ignorance.
Samuel Johnson
Image
I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task.
Samuel Johnson
Image
No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability.
Samuel Johnson
Image
A fallible being will fail somewhere.
Samuel Johnson
Image
All this [wealth] excludes but one evil, poverty.
Samuel Johnson
Image
We all live upon the hope of pleasing somebody, and the pleasure of pleasing ought to be greatest, and at last always will be greatest, when our endeavours are exerted in consequence of our duty.
Samuel Johnson