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He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson
No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.
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Distance either of time or place is sufficient to reconcile weak minds to wonderful relations.
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The true art of memory is the art of attention.
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The really happy woman is the one who can enjoy the scenery when she has to take a detour. Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but rather a manner of traveling.
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The eye of the mind, like that of the body, can only extend its view to new objects, by losing sight of those which are now before it.
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We have always pretensions to fame which, in our own hearts, we know to be disputable.
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All unnecessary vows are folly, because they suppose a prescience of the future, which has not been given us.
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The process is the reality.
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The belief of immortality is impressed upon all men, and all men act under an impression of it, however they may talk, and though, perhaps, they may be scarcely sensible of it.
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Power is gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent.
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A book should teach us to enjoy life, or to endure it.
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Whatever advantage we snatch beyond a certain portion allotted us by at nature, is like money spent before it is due, which, at the time of regular payment, will be missed and regretted.
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I will take no more physick, not even my opiates for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded.
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The ambition of superior sensibility and superior eloquence disposes the lovers of arts to receive rapture at one time, and communicate it at another and each labors first to impose upon himself and then to propagate the imposture.
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In the condition of men, it frequently happens that grief and anxiety lie hid under the golden robes of prosperity and the gloom of calamity is cheered by secret radiations of hope and comfort as in the works of nature, the bog is sometimes covered with flowers, and the mine concealed in the barren crags.
Samuel Johnson
Applause abates diligence.
Samuel Johnson
There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance.
Samuel Johnson
I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much.
Samuel Johnson
Everybody loves to have things which please the palate put in their way, without trouble or preparation.
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The mental disease of the present generation is impatience of study, contempt of the great masters of ancient wisdom, and a disposition to rely wholly upon unassisted genius and natural sagacity.
Samuel Johnson
