Samuel Johnson Quotes About Violence

• He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds; but he that endeavors after it by false merit, has to fear, not only the violence of the storm, but the leaks of his vessel.

  Samuel Johnson

  Fear, Wind, Storm

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1811). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, L. L. D.: In Twelve Volumes”, p.118

• The most Heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together.

  Samuel Johnson

  Ideas, Together, Violence

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets: Cowley. Denham. Milton. Butler. Rochester. Roscommon. Otway. Waller. Pomfret. Dorset. Stepney. J. Phillips. Walsh. Dryden. Smith. Duke. King. Sprat. Halifax. Parnell. Garth. Rowe. Addison. Hughes. Sheffield, duke of Buckinghamshire”, p.14

• 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

  War, Fall, Guilt

  Samuel Johnson (1815). “The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia: A Tale”, p.200

• The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Reading, Thinking

  Samuel Johnson (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.398, Harvard University Press

• 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

  Obscurity, Violence, Pushing

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.38

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