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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
Linguist
Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
Politician
Teacher
Translator
Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Smoke
Raises
Brightening
Expectations
Sinking
Ought
Pleasing
Power
Satisfy
Flame
Flames
Raise
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
Evil is uncertain in the same degree as good, and for the reason that we ought not to hope too securely, we ought not to fear with to much dejection.
Samuel Johnson
An author places himself uncalled before the tribunal of criticism and solicits fame at the hazard of disgrace.
Samuel Johnson
Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice, that we, for the most part, summon our powers to oppose it without any very accurate inquiry whether it is right.
Samuel Johnson
Reason elevates our thoughts as high as the stars, and leads us through the vast space of this mighty fabric yet it comes far short of the real extent of our corporeal being.
Samuel Johnson
The future is bought with the present.
Samuel Johnson
The fortitude which has encountered no dangers, that prudence which has surmounted no difficulties, that integrity which has been attacked by no temptation, can at best be considered but as gold not yet brought to the test, of which therefore the true value cannot be assigned.
Samuel Johnson
Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world.
Samuel Johnson
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
Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.
Samuel Johnson
Idleness is often covered by turbulence and hurry. He that neglects his known duty and real employment naturally endeavours to crowd his mind with something that may bar out the remembrance of his own folly, and does any thing but what he ought to do with eager diligence, that he may keep himself in his own favour.
Samuel Johnson
The habit of looking on the bright side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.
Samuel Johnson
A small country town is not the place in which one would choose to quarrel with a wife every human being in such places is a spy.
Samuel Johnson
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
He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.
Samuel Johnson
A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.
Samuel Johnson
Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such, We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much Who, born for the Universe, narrowed his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.
Samuel Johnson
It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharge of any profession.
Samuel Johnson
Those authors are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of prudence.
Samuel Johnson
Shakespeare never had more than 6 lines together without a fault.
Samuel Johnson
People seldom read a book which is given to them and few are given. The way to spread a work is to sell it at a low price. No man will send to buy a thing that costs even sixpence without an intention to read it.
Samuel Johnson
