Samuel Johnson Quotes About Effort

• He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

  Samuel Johnson

  Change, Positive, Attitude

  Samuel Johnson (1851). “The beauties of Johnson: choice selections from his works”, p.41

• Composition is for the most part an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.

  Samuel Johnson

  Perseverance, Writing, Effort

  Samuel Johnson (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.”, p.145

• What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.

  Samuel Johnson

  Success, Dance, Life And Love

  Samuel Johnson (1831). “The Lives of the English Poets: With Critical Observations on Their Works and Lives of Sundry Eminent Persons”, p.47

• What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

  Samuel Johnson

  Inspirational, Book, Writing

  Quoted in William Seward, Biographia (1799)

• 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

• No man can perform so little as not to have reason to congratulate himself on his merits, when he beholds the multitude that live in total idleness, and have never yet endeavoured to be useful.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Effort, Littles

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1857). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.133

• All industry must be excited by hope.

  Samuel Johnson

  Effort, Excited, Industry

  Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.62

• He that floats lazily down the stream, in pursuit of something borne along by the same current, will find himself indeed moved forward; but unless he lays his hand to the oar, and increases his speed by his own labour, must be always at the same distance from that which he is following.

  Samuel Johnson

  Distance, Hands, Effort

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1820). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: A New Edition in Twelve Volumes, to which is Prefixed, an Essay on His Life and Genius, by Arthur Murphy, Esq. Containing Adventurer and Rasselas”, p.186

• 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

• 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

• Human experience, which is constantly contradicting theory, is the great test of truth. A system, built upon the discoveries of a great many minds, is always of more strength, than what is produced by the mere workings of any one mind, which, of itself, can do very little. There is not so poor a book in the world that would not be a prodigious effort were it wrought out entirely by a single mind, without the aid of prior investigators.

  Samuel Johnson

  Book, Writing, Discovery

  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.526

• Many causes may vitiate a writer's judgement of his own works. On that which has cost him much labour he sets a high value, because he is unwilling to think that he has been diligent in vain: what has been produced without toilsome efforts is considered with delight as a proof of vigorous faculties and fertile invention; and the last work, whatever it be, has necessarily most of the grace of novelty.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Thinking, Effort

  Samuel Johnson (1787). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Together with His Life, and Notes on His Lives of the Poets, by Sir John Hawkins, Knt. In Eleven Volumes ...”, p.136

• To write is, indeed, no unpleasing employment, when one sentiment readily produces another, and both ideas and expressions present themselves at the first summons; but such happiness, the greatest genius does not always obtain; and common writers know it only to such a degree, as to credit its possibility. Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.

  Samuel Johnson

  Perseverance, Writing, Expression

  Samuel Johnson (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson: The adventurer and idler”, p.145

• He that compares what he has done with what he has left undone, will feel the effect which must always follow the comparison of imagination with reality; he will look with contempt on his own unimportance, and wonder to what purpose he came into the world; he will repine that he shall leave behind him no evidence of his having been, that he has added nothing to the system of life, but has glided from youth to age among the crowd, without any effort for distinction.

  Samuel Johnson

  Reality, Imagination, Effort

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “Works”, p.355

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