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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
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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
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Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Book
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Poetry
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Beauties
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Preserved
Science
Originally
Cannot
Translate
May
Exactly
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
Every man is of importance to himself.
Samuel Johnson
I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of the earth, and that things are the sons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.
Samuel Johnson
Almost all the moral good which is left among us is the apparent effect of physical evil.
Samuel Johnson
So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.
Samuel Johnson
The civilities of the great are never thrown away.
Samuel Johnson
One of the aged greatest miseries is that they cannot easily find a companion able to share the memories of the past.
Samuel Johnson
The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.
Samuel Johnson
If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards.
Samuel Johnson
I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
Samuel Johnson
The gloomy and the resentful are always found among those who have nothing to do or who do nothing.
Samuel Johnson
Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.
Samuel Johnson
It is in refinement and elegance that the civilized man differs from the savage.
Samuel Johnson
I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of.
Samuel Johnson
To neglect at any time preparation for death is to sleep on our post at a siege to omit it in old age is to sleep at an attack.
Samuel Johnson
To read, write, and converse in due proportions, is, therefore, the business of a man of letters.
Samuel Johnson
He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.
Samuel Johnson
Good-humor is a state between gayety and unconcern,--the act or emanation of a mind at leisure to regard the gratification of another.
Samuel Johnson
Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.
Samuel Johnson
In solitude we have our dreams to ourselves, and in company we agree to dream in concert.
Samuel Johnson
Every man that has felt pain knows how little all other comforts can gladden him to whom health is denied. Yet who is there does not sometimes hazard it for the enjoyment of an hour?
Samuel Johnson