Quote

Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness and captivity would, without this comfort, be insupportable.

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
Would
Misery
Comfort
Necessary
Poverty
Insupportable
Conditions
Miseries
Hope
Captivity
Without
Sickness
Every
Condition

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne judgment and friendship are like being enlivened.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Present opportunities are neglected, and attainable good is slighted, by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world.
Samuel Johnson
Image
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
Image
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
Image
Fly-fishing may be a very pleasant amusement but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Music is the only sensual pleasure without vice.
Samuel Johnson
Image
A man, doubtful of his dinner, or trembling at a creditor, is not much disposed to abstracted meditation, or remote enquiries.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Poetry cannot be translation
Samuel Johnson
Image
In solitude we have our dreams to ourselves, and in company we agree to dream in concert.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Liberty is the parent of truth, but truth and decency are sometimes at variance. All men and all propositions are to be treated here as they deserve, and there are many who have no claim either to respect or decency.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Sleep undisturbed within this peaceful shrine, Till angels wake thee with a note like thine.
Samuel Johnson
Image
I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.
Samuel Johnson
Image
To scatter praise or blame without regard to justice is to destroy the distinction of good and evil. Many have no other test of actions than general opinion and all are so far influenced by a sense of reputation that they are often restrained by fear of reproach, and excited by hope of honour, when other principles have lost their power.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Attention and respect give pleasure, however late, or however useless. But they are not useless, when they are late, it is reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.
Samuel Johnson
Image
No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.
Samuel Johnson
Image
This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, slow rises worth by poverty depressed.
Samuel Johnson
Image
All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.
Samuel Johnson