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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
Teacher
Translator
Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Science
Originally
Cannot
Translate
May
Exactly
Book
Except
Writing
Poetry
Books
Written
Beauties
Language
Preserved

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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Power is gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent.
Samuel Johnson
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If useless thoughts could be expelled from the mind, all the valuable parts of our knowledge would more frequently recur.
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Among the numerous stratagems by which pride endeavors to recommend folly to regard, there is scarcely one that meets with less success than affectation, or a perpetual disguise of the real character by fictitious appearances.
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I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much.
Samuel Johnson
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I am very fond of the company of ladies. I like their beauty, I like their delicacy, I like their vivacity, and I like their silence.
Samuel Johnson
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We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.
Samuel Johnson
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We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.
Samuel Johnson
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Domestic discord is not inevitably and fatally necessary but yet it is not easy to avoid.
Samuel Johnson
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Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.
Samuel Johnson
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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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Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. Every advance into knowledge opens new prospects, and produces new incitements to farther progress.
Samuel Johnson
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Books have always a secret influence on the understanding we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas he that reads books of science, thogh without any fixed desire of improvement, will grow more knowing.
Samuel Johnson
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All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.
Samuel Johnson
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Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
Samuel Johnson
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It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honor, and fictitious benevolence.
Samuel Johnson
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Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
Samuel Johnson
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To excite opposition and inflame malevolence is the unhappy privilege of courage made arrogant by consciousness of strength.
Samuel Johnson
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An exotic and irrational entertainment.
Samuel Johnson
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An infallible characteristic of meanness is cruelty.
Samuel Johnson
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Political liberty is only good insofar as it produces private liberty.
Samuel Johnson