Quote

Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent.

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
Humans
Abilities
Great
Composition
Mind
Historian
Powers
Historical
Greatest
Quiescent
Ability
Penetration
Human
Requisite

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
Poetry cannot be translation
Samuel Johnson
Image
The really happy woman is the one who can enjoy the scenery when she has to take a detour. Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but rather a manner of traveling.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Every man may be observed to have a certain strain of lamentation, some peculiar theme of complaint on which he dwells in his moments of dejection.
Samuel Johnson
Image
A few men are sufficient to broach falsehoods, which are afterwards innocently diffused by successive relaters.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The peculiar doctrine of Christianity is that of a universal sacrifice and perpetual propitiation.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Bashfulness may sometimes exclude pleasure, but seldom opens any avenue to sorrow or remorse.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Faction seldom leaves a man honest, however it might find him.
Samuel Johnson
Image
I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Smoking is a shocking thing - blowing smoke out of our mouths into other people's mouths, eyes, and noses, and having the same thing done to us.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is in refinement and elegance that the civilized man differs from the savage.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is not possible to be regarded with tenderness, except by a few. That merit which gives greatness and renown diffuses its influence to a wide compass, but acts weakly on every single breast it is placed at a distance from common spectators, and shines like one of the remote stars, of which the light reaches us, but not the heat.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Do not ... hope wholly to reason away your troubles do not feed them with attention, and they will die imperceptibly away. Fix your thoughts upon your business, fill your intervals with company, and sunshine will again break in upon your mind.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Men become friends by a community of pleasures.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Had I learned to fiddle, I should have done nothing else.
Samuel Johnson
Image
People seldom read a book which is given to them and few are given. The way to spread a work is to sell it at a low price. No man will send to buy a thing that costs even sixpence without an intention to read it.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The truly strong and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Profuseness is a cruel and crafty demon, that gradually involves her followers in dependence and debt that is, fetters them with irons that enter into their souls.
Samuel Johnson
Image
He who sees different ways to the same end, will, unless he watches carefully over his own conduct, lay out too much of his attention upon the comparison of probabilities and the adjustment of expedients, and pause in the choice of his road, till some accident intercepts his journey.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Learn the leading precognita of all things-no need to turn over leaf by leaf, but grasp the trunk hard and you will shake all the branches. Advice cherished by Samuel Johnson that that, if one is to master any subject, one must first discover its general principles.
Samuel Johnson
Image
An epithet or metaphor drawn from nature ennobles art an epithet or metaphor drawn from art degrades nature.
Samuel Johnson