Samuel Johnson Quotes About Difficulty

• Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties.

  Samuel Johnson

  Success, Work, Pleasure

  Samuel Johnson (1848). “The Wisdom of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler”, p.132

• Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.

  Samuel Johnson

  Life, Motivational, Achievement

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson: The Adventurer and Idler”, p.108

• Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.

  Samuel Johnson

  Design, Easy, Difficult

  Samuel Johnson (1803). “The History of Rasselas, Etc. [With a Life of Dr. Johnson.]”, p.71

• Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Food, Cooking

  In William Roberts (ed.) 'Memoirs of the Life and Correspondence of Mrs Hannah More' (1834) vol. 1, p. 251

• A fellow will hack half a year at a block of marble to make something in stone that hardly resembles a man. The value of statuary is owing to its difficulty. You would not value the finest head cut upon a carrot.

  Samuel Johnson

  Block, Cutting, Men

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1824). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., Comprehending an Account of His Studies, and Numerous Works, in Chronological Order: A Series of His Epistolary Correspondence and Conversations with Many Eminent Persons; and Various Original Pieces of His Composition, Never Before Published; the Whole Exhibiting a View of Literature and Literary Men in Great Britain, for Near Half a Century During which He Flourished”, p.414

• That eminence of learning is not to be gained without labour, at least equal to that which any other kind of greatness can require, will be allowed by those who wish to elevate the character of a scholar; since they cannot but know that every human acquisition is valuable in proportion to the difficulty of its attainment.

  Samuel Johnson

  Character, Greatness, Effort

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.139

• Where there is no difficulty there is no praise.

  Samuel Johnson

  Effort, Praise, Difficulty

  Samuel Johnson (1854). “Lives of the most eminent English poets, with critical observations on their works. With notes by P. Cunningham”, p.276

• To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity; the next is, to strive, and deserve to conquer: but he whose life has passed without a contest, and who can boast neither success nor merit, can survey himself only as a useless filler of existence; ad if he is content with his own character, must owe his satisfaction to insensibility.

  Samuel Johnson

  Character, Effort, Useless

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1834). “Murphy's essay. The rambler. The adventurer. The idler. Rasselas. Tales of the imagination. Letters. Irene. Miscellaneous poems”, p.343

• It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclusions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the question, they expect to find their own opinion universally prevalent, and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge.

  Samuel Johnson

  Honesty, Men, Want

  Samuel Johnson (1827). “The Rambler”, p.110

• Those who will not take the trouble to think for themselves, have always somebody that thinks for them; and the difficulty in writing is to please those from whom others learn to be pleased.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Thinking, Trouble

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”

• If an author be supposed to involve his thoughts in voluntary obscurity, and to obstruct, by unnecessary difficulties, a mind eager in the pursuit of truth; if he writes not to make others learned, but to boast the learning which he possesses himself, and wishes to be admired rather than understood, he counteracts the first end of writing, and justly suffers the utmost severity of censure, or the more afflicting severity of neglect.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Mind, Suffering

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”

• Consultation and compliance can conduce little to the perfection of any literary performance; for whoever is so doubtful of his own abilities as to encourage the remarks of others, will find himself every day embarrassed with new difficulties, and will harass his mind, in vain, with the hopeless labour of uniting heterogeneous ideas, digesting independent hints, and collecting into one point the several rays of borrowed light, emitted often with contrary directions.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Independent, Light

  Samuel Johnson (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.183, Harvard University Press

• To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Inner Peace, Trying

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1837). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq”, p.343

• The mental disease of the present generation is impatience of study, contempt of the great masters of ancient wisdom, and a disposition to rely wholly upon unassisted genius and natural sagacity. The wits of these happy days have discovered a way to fame, which the dull caution of our laborious ancestors durst never attempt; they cut the knots of sophistry, which it was formerly the business of years to untie, solve difficulties by sudden irradiations of intelligence, and comprehend long processes of argument by immediate intuition.

  Samuel Johnson

  Cutting, Years, Long

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1837). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq”, p.237

• The fortitude which has encountered no dangers, that prudence which has surmounted no difficulties, that integrity which has been attacked by no temptation, can at best be considered but as gold not yet brought to the test, of which therefore the true value cannot be assigned.

  Samuel Johnson

  Integrity, Temptation, Gold

  Samuel Johnson, William Page (1860). “Life and Writings”, p.120

• For life affords no higher pleasure, than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified. He that labours in any great or laudable undertaking, has his fatigues first supported by hope, and afterwards rewarded by joy... To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.

  Samuel Johnson

  Motivational, Joy, Wish

  "The Wisdom of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler".

• Nobody has the right to put another under such a difficulty that he must either hurt the person by telling the truth or hurt himself by telling what is not true.

  Samuel Johnson

  Hurt, Behaviour, Telling The Truth

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson, Edmond Malone (1824). “The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished”, p.306

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