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The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.
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
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson
He who fails to please in his salutation and address is at once rejected, and never obtains an opportunity of showing his latest excellences or essential qualities.
Samuel Johnson
I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it
Samuel Johnson
It is in refinement and elegance that the civilized man differs from the savage.
Samuel Johnson
I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.
Samuel Johnson
Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
Samuel Johnson
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
Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.
Samuel Johnson
I will venture to say there is more learning and science within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit [in London], than in all the rest of the kingdom.
Samuel Johnson
Bashfulness may sometimes exclude pleasure, but seldom opens any avenue to sorrow or remorse.
Samuel Johnson
A voyage to the moon, however romantick and absurd the scheme may now appear, since the properties of air have been better understood, seemed highly probable to many of the aspiring wits in the last century
Samuel Johnson
The seeds of knowledge may be planted in solitude, but must be cultivated in public.
Samuel Johnson
Where there is no difficulty there is no praise.
Samuel Johnson
To wipe all tears from off all faces is a task too hard for mortals but to alleviate misfortunes is often within the most limited power: yet the opportunities which every day affords of relieving the most wretched of human beings are overlooked and neglected with equal disregard of policy and goodness.
Samuel Johnson
He that has too much to do will do something wrong.
Samuel Johnson
A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge.
Samuel Johnson
Every man may be observed to have a certain strain of lamentation, some peculiar theme of complaint on which he dwells in his moments of dejection.
Samuel Johnson
A successful author is equally in danger of the diminution of his fame, whether he continues or ceases to write.
Samuel Johnson
Still we love The evil we do, until we suffer it.
Samuel Johnson
Care that is once enter'd into the breast Will have the whole possession ere it rest.
Samuel Johnson
Rash oaths, whether kept or broken, frequently produce guilt.
Samuel Johnson
