Quote

Whatever is formed for long duration arrives slowly to its maturity.

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
Duration
Grandparent
Formed
Maturity
Slowly
Whatever
Long
Arrives

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.
Samuel Johnson
Image
To mean understandings, it is sufficient honour to be numbered amongst the lowest labourers of learning but different abilities must find different tasks. To hew stone, would have been unworthy of Palladio and to have rambled in search of shells and flowers, had but ill suited with the capacity of Newton.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Who left nothing of authorship untouched, and touched nothing which he did not adorn. [Lat., Qui nullum fere scribendi genus non tetigit nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.]
Samuel Johnson
Image
Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.
Samuel Johnson
Image
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
Samuel Johnson
Image
A lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.
Samuel Johnson
Image
In my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now.
Samuel Johnson
Image
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
Image
You cannot, by all the lecturing in the world, enable a man to make a shoe.
Samuel Johnson
Image
What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.
Samuel Johnson
Image
When making your choice in life, do not neglect to live.
Samuel Johnson
Image
All power of fancy over reason is a degree of madness.
Samuel Johnson
Image
There must always be some advantage on one side or the other, and it is better that advantage should be had by talents than by chance.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is the just doom of laziness and gluttony to be inactive without ease and drowsy without tranquility.
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
Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay an author.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is repaid in flattery.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
Samuel Johnson