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We ought not to raise expectations which it is not in our power to satisfy.-It is more pleasing to see smoke brightening into flame, than flame sinking into smoke.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Lexicographer
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
Politician
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Pleasing
Ought
Satisfy
Power
Flame
Flames
Raise
Smoke
Brightening
Raises
Sinking
Expectations
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
About things on which the public thinks long it commonly attains to think right.
Samuel Johnson
Where there is emulation, there will be vanity where there is vanity, there will be folly.
Samuel Johnson
The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the praise of servants.
Samuel Johnson
Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.
Samuel Johnson
There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.
Samuel Johnson
In my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now.
Samuel Johnson
Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.
Samuel Johnson
Pound St. Paul's Church into atoms, and consider any single atom it is to be sure, good for nothing but put all these atoms together, and you have St. Paul's Church. So it is with human felicity, which is made up of many ingredients, each of which may be shown to be very insignificant.
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
Golf is a game in which you claim the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood.
Samuel Johnson
Unless a woman has an amorous heart, she is a dull companion.
Samuel Johnson
Learn the leading precognita of all things-no need to turn over leaf by leaf, but grasp the trunk hard and you will shake all the branches. Advice cherished by Samuel Johnson that that, if one is to master any subject, one must first discover its general principles.
Samuel Johnson
We are perpetually moralists, but we are geometricians only by chance. Our intercourse with intellectual nature is necessary our speculations upon matter are voluntary, and at leisure.
Samuel Johnson
All intellectual improvement arises from leisure.
Samuel Johnson
To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship.
Samuel Johnson
Never trust your tongue when your heart is bitter.
Samuel Johnson
The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.
Samuel Johnson
The peculiar doctrine of Christianity is that of a universal sacrifice and perpetual propitiation.
Samuel Johnson
It is a hopeless endeavour to unite the contrarieties of spring and winter it is unjust to claim the privileges of age, and retain the play-things of childhood.
Samuel Johnson
Men become friends by a community of pleasures.
Samuel Johnson