Quote

Greece appears to be the fountain of knowledge Rome of elegance

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
Culture
Greece
Elegance
Fountain
Rome
Appears
Knowledge

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
A student may easily exhaust his life in comparing divines and moralists without any practical regard to morals and religion he may be learning not to live but to reason... while the chief use of his volumes is unthought of, his mind is unaffected, and his life is unreformed.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Life, however short, is made still shorter by waste of time.
Samuel Johnson
Image
I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to he right.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is our first duty to serve society.
Samuel Johnson
Image
A man is not obliged honestly to answer a question which should not properly be put.
Samuel Johnson
Image
I am a friend to subordination, as most conducive to the happiness of society. There is a reciprocal pleasure in governing and being governed.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The trade of advertising is now so near to perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. But as every art ought to be exercized in due subordination to the public good, I cannot but propose it as a moral question to these masters of the public ear, whether they do not sometimes play too wantonly with our passions.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Learn the leading precognita of all things-no need to turn over leaf by leaf, but grasp the trunk hard and you will shake all the branches. Advice cherished by Samuel Johnson that that, if one is to master any subject, one must first discover its general principles.
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
Never speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate, and may be offensive .
Samuel Johnson
Image
When two Eglishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather.
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
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Inquiries into the heart are not for man.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Piety is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying man. He that grows old without religions hopes, as he declines into imbecility, and feels pains and sorrows incessantly crowding upon him, falls into a gulf of bottomless misery, in which every reflection must plunge him deeper and deeper.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet. From those sounds which we hear on small or on coarse occasions, we do not easily receive strong impressions, or delightful images and words to which we are nearly strangers, whenever they occur, draw that attention on themselves which they should transmit to other things.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Idleness and timidity often despair without being overcome, and forbear attempts for fear of being defeated and we may promote the invigoration of faint endeavors, by showing what has already been performed.
Samuel Johnson
Image
If you are idle, be not solitary if you are solitary be not idle.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Any of us would kill a cow rather than not have beef.
Samuel Johnson