Quote

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

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
Thing
Days
Much
Opinion
Books
Every
Taken
Good
Reading
People
Science
Lectures
Cannot
Strange
Book
Taught

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
In the condition of men, it frequently happens that grief and anxiety lie hid under the golden robes of prosperity and the gloom of calamity is cheered by secret radiations of hope and comfort as in the works of nature, the bog is sometimes covered with flowers, and the mine concealed in the barren crags.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Men become friends by a community of pleasures.
Samuel Johnson
Image
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.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The whole power of cunning is privative to say nothing, and to do nothing , is the utmost of its reach. Yet men, thus narrow by nature and mean by art, are sometimes able to rise by the miscarriages of bravery and the openness of integrity, and, watching failures and snatching opportunities, obtain advantages which belong to higher characters.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Terrestrial happiness is of short duration. The brightness of the flame is wasting its fuel the fragrant flower is passing away in its own odors.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The business of a poet is to examine not the individual but the species to remark general properties and large appearances.
Samuel Johnson
Image
We often need reminding even if we do not often need educating.
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
In order that all men might be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
Samuel Johnson
Image
He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Those writers who lie on the watch for novelty can have little hope of greatness for great things cannot have escaped former observation.
Samuel Johnson
Image
All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Sir, as a man advances in life, he gets what is better than admiration, - judgement, to estimate things at their true value.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Wheresoe'er I turn my view, All is strange, yet nothing new: Endless labor all along, Endless labor to be wrong: Phrase that Time has flung away Uncouth words in disarray, Trick'd in antique ruff and bonnet, Ode, and elegy, and sonnet.
Samuel Johnson
Image
He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is wonderful what a difference learning makes upon people even in the common intercourse of life, which does not appear to be much connected with it.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The end of writing is to instruct the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The business of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues of which we are lamenting our deprivation.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Everybody loves to have things which please the palate put in their way, without trouble or preparation.
Samuel Johnson