Quote

Remember that nothing will supply the want of prudence, and that negligence and irregularity long continued will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible.

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
Knowledge
Negligence
Remember
Prudence
Continued
Nothing
Supply
Long
Wit
Make
Useless
Ridiculous
Irregularity
Genius
Contemptible

More quotes by Samuel Johnson

Image
Life, however short, is made still shorter by waste of time.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotsman to draw the trigger at his death.
Samuel Johnson
Image
I soon found that wit, like every other power, has its boundaries that its success depends upon the aptitude of others to receive impressions and that as some bodies, indissoluble by heat, can set the furnace and crucible at defiance, there are min
Samuel Johnson
Image
Whatever is formed for long duration arrives slowly to its maturity.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The richest author that ever grazed the common of literature.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The violence of war admits no distinction the lance, that is lifted at guilt and power, will sometimes fall on innocence and gentleness.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Every human being whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all that he has to get knowledge.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Corneille is to Shakespeare as a clipped hedge is to a forest.
Samuel Johnson
Image
He to whom many objects of pursuit arise at the same time, will frequently hesitate between different desires till a rival has precluded him, or change his course as new attractions prevail, and harass himself without advancing.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.
Samuel Johnson
Image
To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed armies, to gain or to keep unprofitable possessions.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Language is the dress of thought and as the noblest mien or most graceful action would be degraded and obscured by a garb appropriated to the gross employments of rusticks or mechanics, so the most heroick sentiments will lose their efficacy
Samuel Johnson
Image
The care of the critic should be to distinguish error from inability, faults of inexperience from defects of nature.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The inevitable consequence of poverty is dependence.
Samuel Johnson
Image
A student may easily exhaust his life in comparing divines and moralists without any practical regard to morals and religion he may be learning not to live but to reason... while the chief use of his volumes is unthought of, his mind is unaffected, and his life is unreformed.
Samuel Johnson
Image
The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestic privacies, and display the minute details of daily life, were exterior appendages are cast aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and virtue.
Samuel Johnson
Image
To neglect at any time preparation for death is to sleep on our post at a siege to omit it in old age is to sleep at an attack.
Samuel Johnson
Image
Men go to sea, before they know the unhappiness of that way of life and when they have come to know it, they cannot escape from it, because it is then too late to choose another profession as indeed is generally the case with men, when they have once engaged in any particular way of life.
Samuel Johnson
Image
He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
Samuel Johnson