Share
×
Inspirational Quotes
Authors
Professions
Topics
Tags
Quote
The business of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues of which we are lamenting our deprivation.
Samuel Johnson
Share
Change background
T
T
T
Change font
Original
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
Virtue
Lamenting
Business
Summons
Away
Deprivation
Life
Virtues
Calls
Useless
Grief
Exercise
More quotes by Samuel Johnson
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
It was the maxim, I think, of Alphonsus of Aragon, that dead counsellors are safest. The grave puts an end to flattery and artifice, and the information we receive from books is pure from interest, fear, and ambition. Dead counsellors are likewise most instructive, because they are heard with patience and with reverence.
Samuel Johnson
Our aspirations are our possibilities.
Samuel Johnson
Unless a woman has an amorous heart, she is a dull companion.
Samuel Johnson
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.
Samuel Johnson
Much is due to those who first broke the way to knowledge, and left only to their successors the task of smoothing it.
Samuel Johnson
Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.
Samuel Johnson
An exotic and irrational entertainment.
Samuel Johnson
In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
Samuel Johnson
Almost all the moral good which is left among us is the apparent effect of physical evil.
Samuel Johnson
Scarcely any degree of judgment is sufficient to restrain the imagination from magnifying that on which it is long detained
Samuel Johnson
Love is only one of many passions.
Samuel Johnson
When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
Samuel Johnson
We are easily shocked by crimes which appear at once in their full magnitude, but the gradual growth of our own wickedness, endeared by interest, and palliated by all the artifices of self-deceit, gives us time to form distinctions in our own favor
Samuel Johnson
Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent.
Samuel Johnson
Liberty is the parent of truth, but truth and decency are sometimes at variance. All men and all propositions are to be treated here as they deserve, and there are many who have no claim either to respect or decency.
Samuel Johnson
Admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne judgment and friendship are like being enlivened.
Samuel Johnson
Knock the 't' off the 'can't.'
Samuel Johnson
To be flattered is grateful, even when we know that our praises are not believed by those who pronounce them for they prove, at least, our power, and show that our favour is valued, since it is purchased by the meanness of falsehood.
Samuel Johnson
Diffidence may check resolution and obstruct performance, but compensates its embarrassments by more important advantages it conciliates the proud, and softens the severe averts envy from excellence, and censure from miscarriage.
Samuel Johnson