Quote

The liberty of using harmless pleasure will not be disputed but it is still to be examined what pleasures are harmless.

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
Using
Liberty
Pleasure
Stills
Still
Disputed
Examined
Harmless
Pleasures

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm, quiet interchange of sentiments...
Samuel Johnson
Image
When we see our enemies and friends gliding away before us, let us not forget that we are subject to the general law of mortality, and shall soon be where our doom will be fixed forever.
Samuel Johnson
Image
A writer who obtains his full purpose loses himself in his own lustre.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth.
Samuel Johnson
Image
No wonder, Sir, that he is vain a man who is perpetually flattered in every mode that can be conceived. So many bellows have blown the fire, that one wonders he is not by this time become a cinder.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Scarce any man becomes eminently disagreeable but by a departure from his real character, and an attempt at something for which nature or education has left him unqualified.
Samuel Johnson
Image
If a man is in doubt whether it would be better for him to expose himself to martyrdom or not, he should not do it. He must be convinced that he has a delegation from heaven.
Samuel Johnson
Image
An old friend never can be found, and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Want of tenderness is want of parts, and is no less a proof of stupidity than depravity.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Life is but short no time can be afforded but for the indulgence of real sorry, or contests upon questions seriously momentous. Let us not throw away any of our days upon useless resentment, or contend who shall hold out longest in stubborn malignity. It is best not to be angry and best, in the next place, to be quickly reconciled.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Excise: A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Such is the constitution of man that labour may be styled its own reward nor will any external incitements be requisite, if it be considered how much happiness is gained, and how much misery escaped, by frequent and violent agitation of the body.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The great effect of friendship is beneficence, yet by the first act of uncommon kindness it is endangered.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Flattery pleases very generally. In the first place, the flatterer may think what he says to be true but, in the second place, whether he thinks so or not, he certainly thinks those whom he flatters of consequence enough to be flattered.
Samuel Johnson
Image
That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Books without the knowledge of life are useless.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Being reproached for giving to an unworthy person, Aristotle said, I did not give it to the man, but to humanity.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Reproof should not exhaust its power upon petty failings.
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