Samuel Johnson Quotes About Solitude

• In solitude we have our dreams to ourselves, and in company we agree to dream in concert.

  Samuel Johnson

  Dream, Art, Philosophy

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1799). “Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into North Wales”, p.167

• If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle.

  Samuel Johnson

  Advice, Solitude, Sloth

  Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (letter to Boswell, 27 Oct. 1779)

• When female minds are embittered by age or solitude, their malignity is generally exerted in a rigorous and spiteful superintendence of domestic trifles.

  Samuel Johnson

  Women, Solitude, Mind

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1857). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.177

• Among the numerous requisites that must concur to complete an author, few are of more importance than an early entrance into the living world. The seed of knowledge may be planted in solitude, but must be cultivated in public. Argumentation may be taught in colleges, and theories formed in retirement; but the artifice of embellishment and the powers of attraction can be gained only by a general converse.

  Samuel Johnson

  Retirement, Writing, College

  Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.215, Univ of California Press

• Solitude is the surest nurse of all prurient passions, and a girl in the hurry of preparation, or tumult of gaiety, has neither inclination nor leisure to let tender expressions soften or sink into her heart. The ball, the show, are not the dangerous places: no, 'tis the private friend, the kind consoler, the companion of the easy vacant hour, whose compliance with her opinions can flatter her vanity, and whose conversation can sooth, without ever stretching her mind, that is the lover to be feared: he who buzzes in her ear at court, or at the opera, must be contented to buzz in vain.

  Samuel Johnson

  Girl, Passion, Heart

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1859). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.256

• It may be laid down as a position which seldom deceives, that when a man cannot bear his own company, there is something wrong.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Solitude, May

  Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.27

• Study requires solitude, and solitude is a state dangerous to those who are too much accustomed to sink into themselves

  Samuel Johnson

  Solitude, Too Much, Study

  Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.185

• Solitude is dangerous to reason, without being favourable to virtue. Remember that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad.

  Samuel Johnson

  Mad, Solitude, Remember

  "Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. during the last twenty years of his life".

• The seeds of knowledge may be planted in solitude, but must be cultivated in public.

  Samuel Johnson

  Knowledge, Solitude, May

  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.257

• To live without feeling or exciting sympathy, to be fortunate without adding to the felicity of others, or afflicted without tasting the balm of pity, is a state more gloomy than solitude; it is not retreat, but exclusion from mankind. Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

  Samuel Johnson

  Pain, Solitude, Feelings

  Rasselas ch. 26 (1759)

• The life of a solitary man will be certainly miserable, but not certainly devout.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Solitude, Miserable

  Samuel Johnson, Abraham Raimbach, Robert Smirke (1819). “Rasselas”, p.85

• The love of retirement has in all ages adhered closely to those minds which have been most enlarged by knowledge, or elevated by genius. Those who enjoyed everything generally supposed to confer happiness have been forced to seek it in the shades of privacy.

  Samuel Johnson

  Retirement, Solitude, Mind

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1836). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: with an essay on his life and genius”, p.22

• To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire and answer inquiries, is the business of the scholar

  Samuel Johnson

  Thinking, Solitude, Inquiry

  Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.85, Univ of California Press

• The imaginations excited by the view of an unknown and untravelled wilderness are not such as arise in the artificial solitude of parks and gardens... The phantoms which haunt a desert are want, and misery, and danger; the evils of dereliction rush upon the thoughts; man is made unwillingly acquainted with his own weakness, and meditation shows him only how little he can sustain, and how little he can perform.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Garden, Views

  Samuel Johnson (1824). “Works: With an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.255

• Piety practiced in solitude, like the flower that blooms in the desert, may give its fragrance to the winds of heaven, and delight those unbodied spirits that survey the works of God and the actions of men; but it bestows no assistance upon earthly beings, and however free from taints of impurity, yet wants the sacred splendor of beneficence.

  Samuel Johnson

  Flower, Men, Wind

  Samuel Johnson (1912). “The works of Samuel Johnson”

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