Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
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
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
Fathers
Appetite
Virtue
Ends
Mind
Observes
Groundwork
Appetites
Abstinence
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
How is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?
Samuel Johnson
Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man but I call him an unsociable man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good.
Samuel Johnson
Rash oaths, whether kept or broken, frequently produce guilt.
Samuel Johnson
Almost all the moral good which is left among us is the apparent effect of physical evil.
Samuel Johnson
You may translate books of science exactly. ... The beauties of poetry cannot be preserved in any language except that in which it was originally written.
Samuel Johnson
It is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife.
Samuel Johnson
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
Samuel Johnson
No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.... There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government.
Samuel Johnson
Those that have done nothing in life, are not qualified to judge of those that have done little
Samuel Johnson
If you are idle, be not solitary if you are solitary be not idle.
Samuel Johnson
The arguments for purity of life fail of their due influence, not because they have been considered and confuted, but because they have been passed over without consideration.
Samuel Johnson
Dishonor waits on perfidy. A man should blush to think a falsehood it is the crime of cowards.
Samuel Johnson
Our desires always increase with our possessions. The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.
Samuel Johnson
He that pines with hunger, is in little care how others shall be fed. The poor man is seldom studious to make his grandson rich.
Samuel Johnson
One of the most pernicious effects of haste is obscurity.
Samuel Johnson
Hope is necessary in every condition.
Samuel Johnson
The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.
Samuel Johnson
To neglect at any time preparation for death is to sleep on our post at a siege to omit it in old age is to sleep at an attack.
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
Modern writers are the moons of literature they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients.
Samuel Johnson
