Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Great
Deal
Sherry
People
Deals
Pains
Stupid
Excess
Taken
Naturally
Pain
Stupidity
Nature
Dull
Become
Personality
Must
Intellectual
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare.
Samuel Johnson
If a man is in doubt whether it would be better for him to expose himself to martyrdom or not, he should not do it. He must be convinced that he has a delegation from heaven.
Samuel Johnson
Luxury, so far as it reaches the people, will do good to the race of people it will strengthen and multiply them. Sir, no nation was ever hurt by luxury for, as I said before it can reach but a very few.
Samuel Johnson
The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality.
Samuel Johnson
I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of the earth, and that things are the sons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.
Samuel Johnson
Health is certainly more valuable than money, because it is by health that money is procured.
Samuel Johnson
Advice is offensive, it shows us that we are known to others as well as to ourselves.
Samuel Johnson
The fortitude which has encountered no dangers, that prudence which has surmounted no difficulties, that integrity which has been attacked by no temptation, can at best be considered but as gold not yet brought to the test, of which therefore the true value cannot be assigned.
Samuel Johnson
Every man wishes to be wise, and they who cannot be wise are almost always cunning.
Samuel Johnson
There are, indeed, few kinds of composition from which an author, however learned or ingenious, can hope a long continuance of fame.
Samuel Johnson
It is however, reasonable, to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance towards it, though we know it never can be reached.
Samuel Johnson
Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree. We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
Samuel Johnson
In civilized society external advantages make us more respected. A man with a good coat upon his back meets with a better reception than he who has a bad one. You may analyze this and say, What is there in it? But that will avail you nothing, for it is a part of a general system.
Samuel Johnson
Happiness is enjoyed only in proportion as it is known and such is the state or folly of man, that it is known only by experience of its contrary.
Samuel Johnson
Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content. No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of the spring: no man can, at the same time, fill his cup from the source and from the mouth of the Nile.
Samuel Johnson
Do not ... hope wholly to reason away your troubles do not feed them with attention, and they will die imperceptibly away. Fix your thoughts upon your business, fill your intervals with company, and sunshine will again break in upon your mind.
Samuel Johnson
Books, says Lord Bacon, can never teach us the use of books the student must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce his speculations to practice. No man should think so highly of himself as to think he can receive but little light from books no one so meanly, as to believe he can discover nothing but what is to be learned from them.
Samuel Johnson
Fate wings, with every wish, the afflictive dart, Each gift of nature, and each grace of art.
Samuel Johnson
There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
Samuel Johnson
What ever the motive for the insult, it is always best to overlook it for folly doesn't deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect.
Samuel Johnson
