Quote

Hope itself is a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain.

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
Pleasure
Affords
Happiness
Pleasures
Hope
Excess
Pain
Chief
Must
Chiefs
Like
Enjoyed
World
Species
Immoderately
Perhaps
Excesses

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
Every desire is a viper in the bosom, who while he was chill was harmless but when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused
Samuel Johnson
Image
An exotic and irrational entertainment.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Want of tenderness is want of parts, and is no less a proof of stupidity than depravity.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Expectation improperly indulged in must end in disappointment.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Even those to whom Providence has allotted greater strength of understanding can expect only to improve a single science.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Jesting, often, only proves a want of intellect.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is a hopeless endeavour to unite the contrarieties of spring and winter it is unjust to claim the privileges of age, and retain the play-things of childhood.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.
Samuel Johnson
Image
There ambush here relentless ruffians lay, And here the fell attorney prowls for prey.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.
Samuel Johnson
Image
He that never labors may know the pains of idleness, but not the pleasures.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Few have abilities so much needed by the rest of the world as to be caressed on their own terms and he that will not condescend to recommend himself by external embellishments must submit to the fate of just sentiment meanly expressed, and be ridiculed and forgotten before he is understood.
Samuel Johnson
Image
He that never thinks can never be wise.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Thought is always troublesome to him who lives without his own approbation.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Fears of the brave and follies of the wise.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Friendship, compounded of esteem and love, derives from one its tenderness and its permanence from the other.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The fiction of happiness is propagated by every tongue and confirmed by every look till at last all profess the joy which they do not feel and consent to yield to the general delusion.
Samuel Johnson