Quote

There is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the melody of birds, the whisper of groves, and the murmur of rivulets.

Samuel Johnson

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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
Reader
Rural
Writer
Whisper
Happiness
Scarcely
Writing
Delighted
Rivulets
Melody
Groves
Privacy
Murmur
Birds
Grove
Bird
Celebrated

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They who have already enjoyed the crowds and noise of the great city, know their desire to return is little more than the restlessness of a vacant mind, that they are not so much led by hope as driven by disgust, and wish rather to leave the country than to see the town.
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We may take Fancy for a companion, but must follow Reason as our guide.
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A fellow will hack half a year at a block of marble to make something in stone that hardly resembles a man. The value of statuary is owing to its difficulty. You would not value the finest head cut upon a carrot.
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Good-humor is a state between gayety and unconcern,--the act or emanation of a mind at leisure to regard the gratification of another.
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Spite and ill-nature are among the most expensive luxuries in life.
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To scatter praise or blame without regard to justice is to destroy the distinction of good and evil. Many have no other test of actions than general opinion and all are so far influenced by a sense of reputation that they are often restrained by fear of reproach, and excited by hope of honour, when other principles have lost their power.
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The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
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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.
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Thought is always troublesome to him who lives without his own approbation.
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There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart a desire of distinction, which inclines every man first to hope, and then to believe, that Nature has given him something peculiar to himself.
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There is not, perhaps, to a mind well instructed, a more painful occurrence, than the death of one we have injured without reparation.
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Of the present state, whatever it be, we feel and are forced to confess the misery yet when the same state is again at a distance, imagination paints it as desirable.
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Corneille is to Shakespeare as a clipped hedge is to a forest.
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If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.
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I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.
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A contempt of the monuments and the wisdom of the past, may be justly reckoned one of the reigning follies of these days, to which pride and idleness have equally contributed.
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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.
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All truth is valuable, and satirical criticism may be considered as useful when it rectifies error and improves judgment he that refines the public taste is a public benefactor.
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The great effect of friendship is beneficence, yet by the first act of uncommon kindness it is endangered.
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New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new.
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