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Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson
He that applauds him who does not deserve praise, is endeavoring to deceive the public he that hisses in malice or sport, is an oppressor and a robber.
Samuel Johnson
Human reason borrowed many arts from the instinct of animals.
Samuel Johnson
Virtue is too often merely local.
Samuel Johnson
A voyage to the moon, however romantick and absurd the scheme may now appear, since the properties of air have been better understood, seemed highly probable to many of the aspiring wits in the last century
Samuel Johnson
You think I love flattery (says Dr. Johnson), and so I do but a little too much always disgusts me: that fellow Richardson, on the contrary, could not be contented to sail quietly down the stream of reputation, without longing to taste the froth from every stroke of the oar.
Samuel Johnson
None are happy but by anticipation of change.
Samuel Johnson
The coquette has companions, indeed, but no lovers,--for love is respectful and timorous and where among her followers will she find a husband?
Samuel Johnson
Few things are so liberally bestowed, or squandered with so little effect, as good advice.
Samuel Johnson
The hostility perpetually exercised between one man and another, is caused by the desire of many for that which only few can possess. Every man would be rich, powerful, and famous yet fame, power, and riches, are only the names of relative conditions, which imply the obscurity, dependence, and poverty of greater numbers.
Samuel Johnson
Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.
Samuel Johnson
In questions of law or of fact conscience is very often confounded with opinion. No man's conscience can tell him the rights of another man they must be known by rational investigation or historical inquiry.
Samuel Johnson
You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.
Samuel Johnson
A man is not obliged honestly to answer a question which should not properly be put.
Samuel Johnson
Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.
Samuel Johnson
He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.
Samuel Johnson
Every man, however hopeless his pretensions may appear, has some project by which he hopes to rise to reputation some art by which he imagines that the attention of the world will be attracted some quality, good or bad, which discriminates him from the common herd of mortals, and by which others may be persuaded to love, or compelled to fear him.
Samuel Johnson
He that has too much to do will do something wrong.
Samuel Johnson
But to the particular species of excellence men are directed, not by an ascendant planet or predominating humour, but by the first book which they read, some early conversation which they heard, or some accident which excited ardour and emulation.
Samuel Johnson
In a man's letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process. Nothing is inverted, nothing distorted, you see systems in their elements, you discover actions in their motives.
Samuel Johnson
The gloomy and the resentful are always found among those who have nothing to do or who do nothing.
Samuel Johnson
