Samuel Johnson Quotes About Disappointment

• 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

  Success, Disappointment, Loss

  Samuel Johnson (1836). “Johnsoniana; or supplement to Boswell; being Anecdotes and sayings of Dr. Johnson, etc”, p.105

• The pleasure of expecting enjoyment is often greater than that of obtaining it, and the completion of almost every wish is found a disappointment.

  Samuel Johnson

  Disappointment, Wish, Pleasure

  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.116

• He who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectation, or has any other effect than that of producing a moral sentence or peevish exclamation.

  Samuel Johnson

  Disappointment, Expectations, Moral

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy, Francis Pearson Walesby (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D..: The Adventurer and Idler”, p.154

• The main of life is composed of small incidents and petty occurrences; of wishes for objects not remote, and grief for disappointments of no fatal consequence.

  Samuel Johnson

  Life, Disappointment, Grief

  Samuel Johnson (1819). “The Beauties of Samuel Johnson: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous”, p.165

• Expectation improperly indulged in must end in disappointment.

  Samuel Johnson

  Disappointment, Expectations, Ends

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1799). “Boswell's Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides, and Johnson's Diary of A Journey Into North Wales”, p.426

• To tell of disappointment and misery, to thicken the darkness of futurity, and perplex the labyrinth of uncertainty, has been always a delicious employment of the poets

  Samuel Johnson

  Disappointment, Darkness, Labyrinth

  Samuel Johnson (2009). “The Lives of the Poets: A Selection”, p.422, OUP Oxford

• It is commonly supposed that the uniformity of a studious life affords no matter for narration: but the truth is, that of the most studious life a great part passes without study. An author partakes of the common condition of humanity; he is born and married like another man; he has hopes and fears, expectations and disappointments, griefs and joys, and friends and enemies, like a courtier or a statesman; nor can I conceive why his affairs shuld not excite curiosity as much as the whisper of a drawing-room, or the factions of a camp.

  Samuel Johnson

  Disappointment, Grief, Drawing

  Samuel Johnson (1836). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.: D., with an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.453

• None of the projects or designs which exercise the mind of man are equally subject to obstructions and disappointments with the pursuit of fame.

  Samuel Johnson

  Disappointment, Exercise, Design

  Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.217

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