Quote

None can be pleased without praise, and few can be praised without falsehood.

Samuel Johnson

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

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
Praised
Pleased
Falsehood
Praise
None
Without

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
Our senses, our appetite, and our passions are our lawful and faithful guides in things that relate solely to this life.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Our aspirations are our possibilities.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne judgment and friendship are like being enlivened.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The coquette has companions, indeed, but no lovers,--for love is respectful and timorous and where among her followers will she find a husband?
Samuel Johnson
Image
We must consider how very little history there is--I mean real, authentic history. That certain kings reigned and certain battles were fought, we can depend upon as true but all the coloring, all the philosophy, of history is conjecture.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The business of a poet is to examine not the individual but the species to remark general properties and large appearances.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The insolence of wealth will creep out.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The civilities of the great are never thrown away.
Samuel Johnson
Image
How few of his friends' houses would a man choose to be at when he is sick.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Men are like stone jugs - you may lug them where you like by the ears.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.
Samuel Johnson
Image
There is no crime more infamous than the violation of truth. It is apparent that men can be social beings no longer than they believe each other. When speech is employed only as the vehicle of falsehood, every man must disunite himself from others, inhabit his own cave and seek prey only for himself.
Samuel Johnson
Image
They make a rout about universal liberty, without considering that all that is to be valued, or indeed can be enjoyed by individuals, is private liberty.
Samuel Johnson
Image
There is little peace or comfort in life if we are always anxious as to future events. He that worries himself with the dread of possible contingencies will never be at rest.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Many falsehoods are passing into uncontradicted history.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The difference between coarse and refined abuse is the difference between being bruised by a club and wounded by a poisoned arrow.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Avarice is a uniform and tractable vice other intellectual distempers are different in different constitutions of mind. That which soothes the pride of one will offend the pride of another, but to the favor of the covetous bring money, and nothing is denied.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The mischief of flattery is, not that it persuades any man that he is what he is not, but that it suppresses the influence of honest ambition, by raising an opinion that honour may be gained without the toil of merit.
Samuel Johnson