Samuel Johnson Quotes About Dreads

• Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.

  Samuel Johnson

  Examination, Fraud, Dread

  Lectures on the Elements of Political Economy, 1831.

• No cause more frequently produces bashfulness than too high an opinion of our own importance. He that imagines an assembly filled with his merit, panting with expectation, and hushed with attention, easily terrifies himself with the dread of disappointing them, and strains his imagination in pursuit of something that may vindicate the veracity of fame, and show that his reputation was not gained by chance.

  Samuel Johnson

  Imagination, Expectations, Arrogance

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.275

• There is little peace or comfort in life if we are always anxious as to future events. He that worries himself with the dread of possible contingencies will never be at rest.

  Samuel Johnson

  Life, Peace, Future

• The whole world is put in motion by the wish for riches and the dread of poverty.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wish, Poverty, World

  Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.92

• Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has repressed. It only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

  Samuel Johnson

  Drinking, Food, Wine

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1866). “The Life of Samuel Johnson”, p.220

• The mind is seldom quickened to very vigorous operations but by pain, or the dread of pain. We do not disturb ourselves with the detection of fallacies which do us no harm.

  Samuel Johnson

  Pain, Mind, Harm

  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.373

• To dread no eye and to suspect no tongue is the great prerogative of innocence--an exemption granted only to invariable virtue.

  Samuel Johnson

  Eye, Tongue, Innocence

  Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.78

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