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I remember a passage in Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield, which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
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Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Love
Zeal
Afterwards
Wakefield
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Expunge
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Goldsmith
Remember
Vicar
Nothing
Vicars
Enough
Zealous
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Passage
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
The belief of immortality is impressed upon all men, and all men act under an impression of it, however they may talk, and though, perhaps, they may be scarcely sensible of it.
Samuel Johnson
Nothing is more common than for men to make partial and absurd distinctions between vices of equal enormity, and to observe some of the divine commands with great scrupulousness, while they violate others, equally important, without any concern, or the least apparent conciousness of guilt. Alas, it is only wisdom which perceives this tragedy.
Samuel Johnson
We may take Fancy for a companion, but must follow Reason as our guide.
Samuel Johnson
All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare.
Samuel Johnson
Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of language.
Samuel Johnson
A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.
Samuel Johnson
A successful author is equally in danger of the diminution of his fame, whether he continues or ceases to write.
Samuel Johnson
Wealth is nothing in itself it is not useful but when it departs from us.
Samuel Johnson
An Englishman is content to say nothing when he has nothing to say.
Samuel Johnson
Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
Samuel Johnson
Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiarity with knowledge, and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things, when they are shown their form or told their use.
Samuel Johnson
It is the care of a very great part of mankind to conceal their indigence from the rest. They support themselves by temporary expedients, and every day is lost in contriving for to-morrow.
Samuel Johnson
The future is purchased by the present.
Samuel Johnson
The fiction of happiness is propagated by every tongue and confirmed by every look till at last all profess the joy which they do not feel and consent to yield to the general delusion.
Samuel Johnson
No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.
Samuel Johnson
Life admits not of delays when pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it. Every hour takes away part of the things that please us, and perhaps part of our disposition to be pleased.
Samuel Johnson
A married man has many cares, but a bachelor no pleasures.
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
Those who will not take the trouble to think for themselves, have always somebody that thinks for them and the difficulty in writing is to please those from whom others learn to be pleased.
Samuel Johnson
To mean understandings, it is sufficient honour to be numbered amongst the lowest labourers of learning but different abilities must find different tasks. To hew stone, would have been unworthy of Palladio and to have rambled in search of shells and flowers, had but ill suited with the capacity of Newton.
Samuel Johnson
