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Too much nicety of detail disgusts the greatest part of readers, and to throw a multitude of particulars under general heads, and lay down rules of extensive comprehension, is to common understandings of little use.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
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Particulars
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
Discord generally operates in little things it is inflamed ... by contrariety of taste oftener than principles.
Samuel Johnson
Rags will always make their appearance where they have a right to do it.
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 world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.
Samuel Johnson
Politeness is one of those advantages which we never estimate rightly but by the inconvenience of its loss.
Samuel Johnson
If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.
Samuel Johnson
So scanty is our present allowance of happiness that in many situations life could scarcely be supported if hope were not allowed to relieve the present hour by pleasures borrowed from the future.
Samuel Johnson
I wish there were some cure, like the lover's leap, for all heads of which some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession.
Samuel Johnson
If useless thoughts could be expelled from the mind, all the valuable parts of our knowledge would more frequently recur.
Samuel Johnson
Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
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
Pope had been flattered till he thought himself one of the moving powers of the system of life. When he talked of laying down his pen, those who sat round him intreated and implored and self-love did not suffer him to suspect that they went away and laughed.
Samuel Johnson
The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay.
Samuel Johnson
He who writes much will not easily escape a manner, such a recurrence of particular modes as may be easily noted.
Samuel Johnson
No wonder, Sir, that he is vain a man who is perpetually flattered in every mode that can be conceived. So many bellows have blown the fire, that one wonders he is not by this time become a cinder.
Samuel Johnson
A fellow will hack half a year at a block of marble to make something in stone that hardly resembles a man. The value of statuary is owing to its difficulty. You would not value the finest head cut upon a carrot.
Samuel Johnson
There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.
Samuel Johnson
Sir, if a man has a mind to prance, he must study at Christ Church and All Souls.
Samuel Johnson
A successful author is equally in danger of the diminution of his fame, whether he continues or ceases to write.
Samuel Johnson
Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.
Samuel Johnson
