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Wit is that which has been often thought, but never before was well expressed.
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
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Writer
Lichfield
Staffordshire
Dr Johnson
Dr. Johnson
Great Moralist
Thought
Wells
Well
Never
Expressed
Wit
Often
More quotes by 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
Novelty is indeed necessary to preserve eagerness and alacrity but art and nature have stores inexhaustible by human intellects, and every moment produces something new to him who has quickened his faculties by diligent observation.
Samuel Johnson
If useless thoughts could be expelled from the mind, all the valuable parts of our knowledge would more frequently recur.
Samuel Johnson
The gloomy and the resentful are always found among those who have nothing to do or who do nothing.
Samuel Johnson
Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success for it supplies as many images to the mind, and as many topics to the tongue.
Samuel Johnson
Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
Samuel Johnson
In the bottle discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence.
Samuel Johnson
Political liberty is only good insofar as it produces private liberty.
Samuel Johnson
That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.
Samuel Johnson
You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.
Samuel Johnson
An old friend never can be found, and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.
Samuel Johnson
When there is no hope, there can be no endeavor.
Samuel Johnson
Falsehood always endeavors to copy the mien and attitude of truth.
Samuel Johnson
It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination.
Samuel Johnson
To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship.
Samuel Johnson
Even those to whom Providence has allotted greater strength of understanding can expect only to improve a single science.
Samuel Johnson
It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in want of money. It is clear, they have not value for what they spend.
Samuel Johnson
A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.
Samuel Johnson
Timidity is a disease of the mind, obstinate and fatal for a man once persuaded that any impediment is insuperable has given it, with respect to himself, that strength and weight which it had not before.
Samuel Johnson
It is unpleasing to represent our affairs to our own disadvantage yet it is necessary to shew the evils which we desire to be removed.
Samuel Johnson
