Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
We owe to memory not only the increase of our knowledge, and our progress in rational inquiries, but many other intellectual pleasures
Samuel Johnson
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Memories
Inquiries
Pleasure
Inquiry
Knowledge
Pleasures
Many
Rational
Memory
Increase
Intellectual
Progress
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife he is always proud of himself as the source of it.
Samuel Johnson
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library for who can see the wall crowded on every side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious meditations and accurate inquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue.
Samuel Johnson
From thee, great God, we spring, to thee we tend,- Path, motive, guide, original, and end.
Samuel Johnson
Marriage is the best state for man in general, and every man is a worst man in proportion to the level he is unfit for marriage.
Samuel Johnson
The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestic privacies, and display the minute details of daily life, were exterior appendages are cast aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and virtue.
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
To wipe all tears from off all faces is a task too hard for mortals but to alleviate misfortunes is often within the most limited power: yet the opportunities which every day affords of relieving the most wretched of human beings are overlooked and neglected with equal disregard of policy and goodness.
Samuel Johnson
Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the Dove of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus and a writer naturally pleases himself with a performance which owes nothing to the subject.
Samuel Johnson
No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.
Samuel Johnson
Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet. From those sounds which we hear on small or on coarse occasions, we do not easily receive strong impressions, or delightful images and words to which we are nearly strangers, whenever they occur, draw that attention on themselves which they should transmit to other things.
Samuel Johnson
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
Pension: An allowance made to anyone without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.
Samuel Johnson
Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all.
Samuel Johnson
It is the care of a very great part of mankind to conceal their indigence from the rest. They support themselves by temporary expedients, and every day is lost in contriving for to-morrow.
Samuel Johnson
The business of a poet is to examine not the individual but the species to remark general properties and large appearances.
Samuel Johnson
A soldier's time is passed in distress and danger, or in idleness and corruption.
Samuel Johnson
He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
Samuel Johnson
Advice is seldom welcome. Those who need it most, like it least.
Samuel Johnson
Unintelligible language is a lantern without a light.
Samuel Johnson
I am a hardened and shameless tea drinker, who has, for twenty years, diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant whose kettle has scarcely time to cool who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and, with tea, welcomes the morning.
Samuel Johnson