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The mere power of saving what is already in our hands must be of easy acquisition to every mind and as the example of Lord Bacon may show that the highest intellect cannot safely neglect it, a thousand instances every day prove that the humblest may practise it with success.

Samuel Johnson

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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
Biographer
Bookseller
Essayist
Lexicographer
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Literary Critic
Literary Historian
Poet
Politician
Teacher
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Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Mind
Easy
Highest
Safely
Shows
Thousand
Acquisition
Hands
Already
Neglect
Cannot
Example
Saving
Power
Economy
Instance
Humblest
May
Lord
Intellect
Bacon
Must
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Mere
Practise
Every
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Prove
Instances

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

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There must always be some advantage on one side or the other, and it is better that advantage should be had by talents than by chance.
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We are all prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure.
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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.
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Life, however short, is made still shorter by waste of time.
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In Shakespeare's plays, the mourner hastening to bury his friend is all the time colliding with the reveller hastening to his wine.
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I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.
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To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship.
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The roads of science are narrow, so that they who travel them, must wither follow or meet one another.
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None can be pleased without praise, and few can be praised without falsehood.
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No man hates him at whom he can laugh.
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Hoc age ['do this'] is the great rule, whether you are serious or merry whether ... learning science or duty from a folio, or floating on the Thames. Intentions must be gathered from acts.
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Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim and when you are calculating, calculate.
Samuel Johnson
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An infallible characteristic of meanness is cruelty.
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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
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Long customs are not easily broken he that attempts to change the course of his own life very often labors in vain and how shall we do that for others, which we are seldom able to do for ourselves.
Samuel Johnson
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Applause abates diligence.
Samuel Johnson
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Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world.
Samuel Johnson
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Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.
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Few faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of a more numerous class of readers, than the use of hard words.
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Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.
Samuel Johnson