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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
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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
Left
Eminently
Nature
Unqualified
Character
Disagreeable
Real
Departure
Something
Scarce
Men
Attempt
Becomes
Education
More quotes by 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
We suffer equal pain from the pertinacious adhesion of unwelcome images, as from the evanescence of those which are pleasing and useful.
Samuel Johnson
Never trust your tongue when your heart is bitter.
Samuel Johnson
He who sees different ways to the same end, will, unless he watches carefully over his own conduct, lay out too much of his attention upon the comparison of probabilities and the adjustment of expedients, and pause in the choice of his road, till some accident intercepts his journey.
Samuel Johnson
Sir, if a man has a mind to prance, he must study at Christ Church and All Souls.
Samuel Johnson
I am always for getting a boy forward in his learning, for that is sure good. I would let him at first read any English book which happens to engage his attention because you have done a great deal when you have brought him to have entertainment from a book. He'll get better books afterwards.
Samuel Johnson
From all our observations we may collect with certainty, that misery is the lot of man, but cannot discover in what particular condition it will find most alleviations.
Samuel Johnson
The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.
Samuel Johnson
No knowledge is useless, with the exception of heraldry.
Samuel Johnson
Quotation is a good thing, there is a community of thought in it.
Samuel Johnson
This is my history like all other histories, a narrative of misery.
Samuel Johnson
Fears of the brave and follies of the wise.
Samuel Johnson
The specualtist, who is not content with superficial views, harasses himself with fruitless curiosity and still, as he inquires more, perceives only that he knows less.
Samuel Johnson
Good-humor is a state between gayety and unconcern,--the act or emanation of a mind at leisure to regard the gratification of another.
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
A man finds in the productions of nature an inexhaustible stock of material on which he can employ himself, without any temptations to envy or malevolence, and has always a certain prospect of discovering new reasons for adoring the sovereign author of the universe.
Samuel Johnson
Unintelligible language is a lantern without a light.
Samuel Johnson
Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.
Samuel Johnson
The parallel circumstances and kindred images to which we readily conform our minds are, above all other writings, to be found in the lives of particular persons, and therefore no species of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography.
Samuel Johnson
Happiness, said he, must be something solid and permanent, without fear and without uncertainty.
Samuel Johnson
