Quote

Books have always a secret influence on the understanding we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas he that reads books of science, thogh without any fixed desire of improvement, will grow more knowing.

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
Desire
Influence
Science
Grows
Cannot
Books
Ideas
Knowing
Obliterate
Book
Pleasure
Reads
Without
Secret
Improvement
Always
Understanding
Fixed
Knowledge
Grow

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Turn on the prudent Ant, thy heedful eyes, Observe her labours, Sluggard, and be wise.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Mutual cowardice keeps us in peace.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Art hath an enemy called ignorance.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of language.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The complaint, therefore, that all topicks are preoccupied, is nothing more than the murmur of ignorance or idleness, by which some discourage others, and some themselves the mutability of mankind will always furnish writers with new images, and the luxuriance of fancy may always embellish them with new decorations.
Samuel Johnson
Image
This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Fate wings, with every wish, the afflictive dart, Each gift of nature, and each grace of art.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Never speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate, and may be offensive .
Samuel Johnson
Image
Pride is a vice, which pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in himself
Samuel Johnson
Image
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
Image
As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.
Samuel Johnson
Image
No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.... There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?
Samuel Johnson
Image
As long as one lives he will have need of repentance.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Those who are in the power of evil habits must conquer them as they can and conquered they must be, or neither wisdom nor happiness can be attained: but those who are not yet subject to their influence may, by timely caution, preserve their freedom.
Samuel Johnson
Image
We are easily shocked by crimes which appear at once in their full magnitude, but the gradual growth of our own wickedness, endeared by interest, and palliated by all the artifices of self-deceit, gives us time to form distinctions in our own favor
Samuel Johnson
Image
Still we love The evil we do, until we suffer it.
Samuel Johnson
Image
When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am.
Samuel Johnson