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To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which one of the Fathers observes to be not a virtue, but the groundwork of virtue.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Literary Critic
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Appetite
Virtue
Ends
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Groundwork
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Abstinence
Fathers
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new.
Samuel Johnson
Since life itself is uncertain, nothing which has life for its basis can boast much stability.
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
A man is not obliged honestly to answer a question which should not properly be put.
Samuel Johnson
Faction seldom leaves a man honest, however it might find him.
Samuel Johnson
A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.
Samuel Johnson
Games are good or bad as to their nature all may be perverted.
Samuel Johnson
It is one of the maxims of the civil law, that definitions are hazardous.
Samuel Johnson
The Church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another but there should be a stated day for commemorating the birth of our Saviour, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected.
Samuel Johnson
Was there ever yet anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?
Samuel Johnson
The care of the critic should be to distinguish error from inability, faults of inexperience from defects of nature.
Samuel Johnson
Men have been wise in many different modes but they have always laughed the same way.
Samuel Johnson
The parallel circumstances and kindred images to which we readily conform our minds are, above all other writings, to be found in the lives of particular persons, and therefore no species of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography.
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
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
Too much vigor in the beginning of an undertaking often intercepts and prevents the steadiness and perseverance always necessary in the conduct of a complicated scheme.
Samuel Johnson
I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much.
Samuel Johnson
Wine gives great pleasure, and every pleasure is of itself a good. and A man should cultivate his mind so as to have that confidence and readiness without wine, which wine gives.
Samuel Johnson
Wealth is nothing in itself it is not useful but when it departs from us.
Samuel Johnson
The expense is damnable, the position is ridiculous, and the pleasure fleeting.
Samuel Johnson
