Quote

In the condition of men, it frequently happens that grief and anxiety lie hid under the golden robes of prosperity and the gloom of calamity is cheered by secret radiations of hope and comfort as in the works of nature, the bog is sometimes covered with flowers, and the mine concealed in the barren crags.

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
Hope
Mines
Covered
Cheered
Nature
Mine
Flowers
Radiation
Happens
Flower
Condition
Robes
Sometimes
Comfort
Appearance
Gloom
Men
Works
Prosperity
Barren
Conditions
Golden
Calamity
Secret
Anxiety
Concealed
Crags
Lying
Grief
Frequently
Bogs

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
When desperate ills demand a speedy cure, Distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne judgment and friendship are like being enlivened.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.
Samuel Johnson
Image
You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labor, than when you give money merely in charity.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Some people wave their dogmatic thinking until their own reason is entangled.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Shakespeare never had six lines together without a fault. Perhaps you may find seven, but this does not refute my general assertion.
Samuel Johnson
Image
We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
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
Image
I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
Samuel Johnson
Image
You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle.
Samuel Johnson
Image
You never find people laboring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful income.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Attainment is followed by neglect, possession by disgust, and the malicious remark of the Greek epigrammatist on marriage may be applied to many another course of life, that its two days of happiness are the first and the last
Samuel Johnson
Image
Sleep undisturbed within this peaceful shrine, Till angels wake thee with a note like thine.
Samuel Johnson
Image
He who writes much will not easily escape a manner, such a recurrence of particular modes as may be easily noted.
Samuel Johnson
Image
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
Image
A man should be careful never to tell tales of himself to his own disadvantage. People may be amused at the time, but they will be remembered, and brought out against him upon some subsequent occasion.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Wit will never make a man rich, but there are places where riches will always make a wit.
Samuel Johnson
Image
You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.
Samuel Johnson
Image
When the eye or the imagination is struck with an uncommon work, the next transition of an active mind is to the means by which it was performed
Samuel Johnson