Quote

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

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
Within
Kingdom
Science
Kingdoms
Miles
Accounts
London
Ten
Rest
Circumference
Learning
Venture

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree. We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
Samuel Johnson
Image
We may have many acquaintances, but we can have but few friends this made Aristotle say that he that hath many friends hath none.
Samuel Johnson
Image
In a Man's Letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirrour of his breast.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Bashfulness may sometimes exclude pleasure, but seldom opens any avenue to sorrow or remorse.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Of many, imagined blessings it may be doubted whether he that wants or possesses them had more reason to be satisfied with his lot.
Samuel Johnson
Image
A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The faults of a writer of acknowledged excellence are more dangerous, because the influence of his example is more extensive and the interest of learning requires that they should be discovered and stigmatized, before they have the sanction of antiquity conferred upon them, and become precedents of indisputable authority.
Samuel Johnson
Image
I would advise you, Sir, to study algebra, if you are not an adept already in it: your head would get less muddy, and you will leave off tormenting your neighbours about paper and packthread, while we all live together in a world that is bursting with sin and sorrow.
Samuel Johnson
Image
In civilized society we all depend upon each other, and our happiness is very much owing to the good opinion of mankind.
Samuel Johnson
Image
That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm, quiet interchange of sentiments...
Samuel Johnson
Image
There are certain topicks which are never exhausted. Of some images and sentiments the mind of man may be said to be enamoured it meets them, however often they occur, with the same ardour which a lover feels at the sight of his mistress, and parts from them with the same regret when they can no longer be enjoyed.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Sir, it is wrong to stir up law-suits but when once it is certain that a law-suit is to go on, there is nothing wrong in a lawyer's endeavouring that he shall have the benefit, rather than another.
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
Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Too much vigor in the beginning of an undertaking often intercepts and prevents the steadiness and perseverance always necessary in the conduct of a complicated scheme.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The whole of life is but keeping away the thoughts of death.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Stand Firm for your country, and become a man Honour'd and lov'd: It were a noble life, To be found dead, embracing her.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Gaiety is to good-humor as animal perfumes to vegetable fragrance. The one overpowers weak spirits, the other recreates and revives them. Gaiety seldom fails to give some pain good-humor boasts no faculties which every one does not believe in his own power, and pleases principally by not offending.
Samuel Johnson
Image
No man can have much kindness for him by whom he does not believe himself esteemed, and nothing so evidently proves esteem as imitation.
Samuel Johnson
Image
He that is pushing his predecessors into the gulf of obscurity, cannot but sometimes suspect, that he must himself sink in like manner, and, as he stands upon the same precipice, be swept away with the same violence.
Samuel Johnson