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There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart a desire of distinction, which inclines every man first to hope, and then to believe, that Nature has given him something peculiar to himself.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Lexicographer
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Humans
Distinction
First
Perhaps
Heart
Hope
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Desire
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Inclines
Believe
Nature
Lurks
Men
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Peculiar
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.
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
Present opportunities are neglected, and attainable good is slighted, by minds busied in extensive ranges and intent upon future advantages.
Samuel Johnson
To fix the thoughts by writing, and subject them to frequent examinations and reviews, is the best method of enabling the mind to detect its own sophisms, and keep it on guard against the fallacies which it practices on others
Samuel Johnson
Was there ever yet anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?
Samuel Johnson
Sir, what is poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is but it is not easy to tell what it is.
Samuel Johnson
Nothing can be truly great which is not right.
Samuel Johnson
All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.
Samuel Johnson
Consider what importance to society the chastity of women is. Upon that all the property in the world depends. We hang a thief for stealing a sheep but the unchastity of a woman transfers sheep and farm and all from the right owner.
Samuel Johnson
Reproof should not exhaust its power upon petty failings.
Samuel Johnson
What we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention so there is but one half to be employed on what we read.
Samuel Johnson
The future is purchased by the present.
Samuel Johnson
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
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.
Samuel Johnson
Prudence is an attitude that keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy.
Samuel Johnson
Hope is necessary in every condition.
Samuel Johnson
People have now a-days got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do as much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken.
Samuel Johnson
Every period of life is obliged to borrow its happiness from time to come.
Samuel Johnson
All envy is proportionate to desire we are uneasy at the attainments of another, according as we think our own happiness would be advanced by the addition of that which he withholds from us.
Samuel Johnson
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
Samuel Johnson
