Quote

You cannot give me an instance of any man who is permitted to lay out his own time contriving not to have tedious hours.

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
Time
Tedious
Lays
Instance
Hours
Cannot
Give
Contriving
Giving
Ennui
Men
Permitted

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
What is read twice is usually remembered more than what is once written.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is the just doom of laziness and gluttony to be inactive without ease and drowsy without tranquility.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Rags will always make their appearance where they have a right to do it.
Samuel Johnson
Image
There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Ladies, stock and tend your hive, Trifle not at thirty-five For, howe'er we boast and strive, Life declines from thirty-five He that ever hopes to thrive Must begin by thirty-five.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Those whose abilities or knowledge incline them most to deviate from the general round of life are recalled from eccentricity by the laws of their existence.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The drama's laws the drama's patrons give. For we that live to please must please to live.
Samuel Johnson
Image
No man sympathizes with the sorrows of vanity.
Samuel Johnson
Image
It is man's own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.
Samuel Johnson
Image
If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Hunger is never delicate they who are seldom gorged to the full with praise may be safely fed with gross compliments, for the appetite must be satisfied before it is disgusted.
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 world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.
Samuel Johnson
Image
When two Eglishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather.
Samuel Johnson
Image
A man is not obliged honestly to answer a question which should not properly be put.
Samuel Johnson
Image
That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm, quiet interchange of sentiments...
Samuel Johnson
Image
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
Image
The whole of life is but keeping away the thoughts of death.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould them.
Samuel Johnson