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He that is pushing his predecessors into the gulf of obscurity, cannot but sometimes suspect, that he must himself sink in like manner, and, as he stands upon the same precipice, be swept away with the same violence.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson
Age: 75 †
Born: 1709
Born: September 18
Died: 1784
Died: December 13
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More quotes by Samuel Johnson
Nothing is more common than to find men, whose works are now totally neglected, mentioned with praises by their contemporaries as the oracles of their age, and the legislators of science.
Samuel Johnson
The truly strong and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.
Samuel Johnson
There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow.
Samuel Johnson
Most minds are the slaves of external circumstances, and conform to any hand that undertakes to mould them.
Samuel Johnson
But to the particular species of excellence men are directed, not by an ascendant planet or predominating humour, but by the first book which they read, some early conversation which they heard, or some accident which excited ardour and emulation.
Samuel Johnson
Dishonor waits on perfidy. A man should blush to think a falsehood it is the crime of cowards.
Samuel Johnson
The fountain of contentment must spring up in the mind.
Samuel Johnson
The first step to greatness is to be honest.
Samuel Johnson
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
Samuel Johnson
A continual feast of commendation is only to be obtained by merit or by wealth: many are therefore obliged to content themselves with single morsels, and recompense the infrequency of their enjoyment by excess and riot, whenever fortune sets the banquet before them.
Samuel Johnson
It is generally agreed, that few men are made better by affluence or exaltation.
Samuel Johnson
The wickedness of a loose or profane author is more atrocious than that of a giddy libertine or drunken ravisher, not only because it extends its effects wider, as a pestilence that taints the air is more destructive than poison infused in a draught, but because it is committed with cool deliberation.
Samuel Johnson
No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.
Samuel Johnson
There is nothing against which an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse.
Samuel Johnson
Bashfulness may sometimes exclude pleasure, but seldom opens any avenue to sorrow or remorse.
Samuel Johnson
Let him go abroad to a distant country let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known.
Samuel Johnson
Spring is the season of gaiety, and winter of terror in spring the heart of tranquility dances to the melody of the groves, and the eye of benevolence sparkles at the sight of happiness and plenty: in winter, compassion melts at universal calamity, and the tear of softness starts at the wailing of hunger and the cries of the creation in distress
Samuel Johnson
The hapless wit has his labors always to begin, the call for novelty is never satisfied, and one jest only raises expectation of another.
Samuel Johnson
If misery be the effect of virtue, it ought to be reverenced if of ill-fortune, to be pitied and if of vice, not to be insulted, because it is perhaps itself a punishment adequate to the crime by which it was produced.
Samuel Johnson
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
