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The fiction of happiness is propagated by every tongue and confirmed by every look till at last all profess the joy which they do not feel and consent to yield to the general delusion.

Samuel Johnson

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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
Feel
General
Propagated
Feels
Fiction
Profess
Every
Joy
Confirmed
Lasts
Consent
Happiness
Delusion
Last
Yield
Look
Till
Looks
Tongue

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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There is no idleness, by which we are so easily seduced, as that which dignifies itself by the appearance of business, and by making the loiterer imagine that he has something to do which must not be neglected, keeps him in perpetual agitation, and hurries him rapidly from place to place.
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Celestial wisdom calms the mind.
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A book should teach us to enjoy life, or to endure it.
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A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.
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I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.
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He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind than the strokes of the oar and many fold in their passage while they lie waiting for the gale.
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The ambition of superior sensibility and superior eloquence disposes the lovers of arts to receive rapture at one time, and communicate it at another and each labors first to impose upon himself and then to propagate the imposture.
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The maxim of Cleobulus, Mediocrity is best, has been long considered a universal principle, extending through the whole compass of life and nature. The experience of every age seems to have given it new confirmation, and to show that nothing, however specious or alluring, is pursued with propriety or enjoyed with safety beyond certain limits.
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All imposture weakens confidence and chills benevolence.
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A man who always talks for fame never can be pleasing. The man who talks to unburthen his mind is the man to delight you.
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Yet reason frowns in war's unequal game, Where wasted nations raise a single name And mortgag'd states their grandsire's wreaths regret, From age to age in everlasting debt Wreaths which at last the dear-bought right convey To rust on medals, or on stones decay.
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Hoc age ['do this'] is the great rule, whether you are serious or merry whether ... learning science or duty from a folio, or floating on the Thames. Intentions must be gathered from acts.
Samuel Johnson
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Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.
Samuel Johnson
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The most useful truths are always universal, and unconnected with accidents and customs.
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Don't tell me of deception a lie is a lie, whether it be a lie to the eye or a lie to the ear.
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Mutual complacency is the atmosphere of conjugal love.
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He who is extravagant will quickly become poor and poverty will enforce dependence, and invite corruption.
Samuel Johnson
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Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.
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Credulity is the common failing of inexperienced virtue and he who is spontaneously suspicious may justly be charged with radical corruption.
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Lichfield, England. Swallows certainly sleep all winter. A number of them conglobulate together, by flying round and round, and then all in a heap throw themselves under water, and lye in the bed of a river.
Samuel Johnson