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What we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention so there is but one half to be employed on what we read.
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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Inclination
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson
Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise and motion.
Samuel Johnson
There is a certain degree of temptation which will overcome any virtue. Now, in so far as you approach temptation to a man, you do him an injury and, if he is overcome, you share his guilt.
Samuel Johnson
Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free.
Samuel Johnson
Political liberty is only good insofar as it produces private liberty.
Samuel Johnson
There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.
Samuel Johnson
It is better a man should be abused than forgotten.
Samuel Johnson
I have always said the first Whig was the Devil.
Samuel Johnson
Foppery is never cured it is the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, are never rectified once a coxcomb always a coxcomb.
Samuel Johnson
New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new.
Samuel Johnson
Sorrow is the mere rust of the soul. Activity will cleanse and brighten it.
Samuel Johnson
No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the desire of fond endearments and tender officiousness and, therefore, no one should think it unnecessary to learn those arts by which friendship may be gained.
Samuel Johnson
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
Men are like stone jugs - you may lug them where you like by the ears.
Samuel Johnson
All imposture weakens confidence and chills benevolence.
Samuel Johnson
As long as one lives he will have need of repentance.
Samuel Johnson
Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him who he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society.
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
No man should attempt to teach others what he has never learned himself
Samuel Johnson
There is no crime more infamous than the violation of truth. It is apparent that men can be social beings no longer than they believe each other. When speech is employed only as the vehicle of falsehood, every man must disunite himself from others, inhabit his own cave and seek prey only for himself.
Samuel Johnson
Pension: An allowance made to anyone without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.
Samuel Johnson
