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Why, sir, Sherry is dull, naturally dull but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, Sir, is not in Nature.
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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Sherry
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Naturally
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.
Samuel Johnson
He that never thinks can never be wise.
Samuel Johnson
Evil is uncertain in the same degree as good, and for the reason that we ought not to hope too securely, we ought not to fear with to much dejection.
Samuel Johnson
It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy unenvied, to be healthful without physic, and secure without a guard to obtain from the bounty of nature, what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of artists and attendants, of flatterers and spies.
Samuel Johnson
Attainment is followed by neglect, possession by disgust, and the malicious remark of the Greek epigrammatist on marriage may be applied to many another course of life, that its two days of happiness are the first and the last
Samuel Johnson
From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend,- Path, motive, guide, original, and end.
Samuel Johnson
There is a frightful interval between the seed and the timber.
Samuel Johnson
..to write and to live are very different. Many who praise virtue, do no more than praise it.
Samuel Johnson
The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity... The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
Samuel Johnson
How can children credit the assertions of parents, which their own eyes show them to be false? Few parents act in such a manner as much to enforce their maxims by the credit of their lives
Samuel Johnson
A book should teach us to enjoy life, or to endure it.
Samuel Johnson
Our senses, our appetite, and our passions are our lawful and faithful guides in things that relate solely to this life.
Samuel Johnson
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
Advice is seldom welcome. Those who need it most, like it least.
Samuel Johnson
It may be laid down as a position which seldom deceives, that when a man cannot bear his own company, there is something wrong.
Samuel Johnson
Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.
Samuel Johnson
In civilized society we all depend upon each other, and our happiness is very much owing to the good opinion of mankind.
Samuel Johnson
Occupation alone is happiness.
Samuel Johnson
It is indeed not easy to distinguish affectation from habit he that has once studiously developed a style, rarely writes afterwards with complete ease.
Samuel Johnson
I would advise you, Sir, to study algebra, if you are not an adept already in it: your head would get less muddy, and you will leave off tormenting your neighbours about paper and packthread, while we all live together in a world that is bursting with sin and sorrow.
Samuel Johnson
