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

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
Intellectual
Progress
Memories
Inquiries
Pleasure
Inquiry
Knowledge
Pleasures
Many
Rational
Memory
Increase

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
Power is gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent.
Samuel Johnson
Image
He is no wise man who will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The future is purchased by the present.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Economy is the parent of integrity, of liberty, and of ease, and the beauteous sister of temperance, of cheerfulness and health.
Samuel Johnson
Image
We may have uneasy feelings for seeing a creature in distress without pity for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Trust as little as you can to report, and examine all you can by your own senses.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Politeness is fictitious benevolence.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience you will find it a calamity.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Laws teach us to know when we commit injury and when we suffer it.
Samuel Johnson
Image
There is ... scarcely any species of writing of which we can tell what is its essence, and what are its constituents every new genius produces some innovation, which, when invented and approved, subverts the rules which the practice of foregoing authors had established.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Fate wings, with every wish, the afflictive dart, Each gift of nature, and each grace of art.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Men seldom give pleasure when they are not pleased themselves.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Levellers wish to level down as far as themselves but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.
Samuel Johnson
Image
We are easily shocked by crimes which appear at once in their full magnitude, but the gradual growth of our own wickedness, endeared by interest, and palliated by all the artifices of self-deceit, gives us time to form distinctions in our own favor
Samuel Johnson
Image
Reason and truth will prevail at last
Samuel Johnson
Image
Rash oaths, whether kept or broken, frequently produce guilt.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The fiction of happiness is propagated by every tongue and confirmed by every look till at last all profess the joy which they do not feel and consent to yield to the general delusion.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Hunger is never delicate they who are seldom gorged to the full with praise may be safely fed with gross compliments, for the appetite must be satisfied before it is disgusted.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is indeed certain, that whoever attempts any common topick, will find unexpected coincidences of his thoughts with those of other writers nor can the nicest judgment always distinguish accidental similitude from artful imitation.
Samuel Johnson
Image
From all our observations we may collect with certainty, that misery is the lot of man, but cannot discover in what particular condition it will find most alleviations.
Samuel Johnson