Samuel Johnson Quotes About Humanity

• Sir, sorrow is inherent in humanity. As you cannot judge two and two to be either five, or three, but certainly four, so, when comparing a worse present state with a better which is past, you cannot but feel sorrow. It is not cured by reason, but by the incursion of present objects, which bear out the past.

  Samuel Johnson

  Past, Two, Judging

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1786). “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.72

• He that would travel for the entertainment of others, should remember that the great object of remark is human life. Every Nation has something peculiar in its Manufactures, its Works of Genius, its Medicines, its Agriculture, its Customs, and its Policy. He only is a useful Traveller, who brings home something by which his country may be benefited; who procures some supply of Want, or some mitigation of Evil, which may enable his readers to compare their condition with that of others, to improve it whenever it is worse, and whenever it is better to enjoy it.

  Samuel Johnson

  Country, Home, Medicine

  "The Idler".

• The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.

  Samuel Johnson

  Birthday, Humanity, Care

  Samuel Johnson (2014). “The Letters of Samuel Johnson, Volume II: 1773-1776”, p.75, Princeton University Press

• Being reproached for giving to an unworthy person, Aristotle said, I did not give it to the man, but to humanity.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Giving, Humanity

• The great end of prudence is to give cheerfulness to those hours which splendour cannot gild, and acclamation cannot exhilarate; those soft intervals of unbended amusement, in which a man shrinks to his natural dimensions, and throws aside the ornaments or disguises which he feels in privacy to be useless incumbrances, and to lose all effect when they become familiar. To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.

  Samuel Johnson

  Home, Ambition, Men

  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.431

• Those whose abilities or knowledge incline them most to deviate from the general round of life are recalled from eccentricity by the laws of their existence.

  Samuel Johnson

  Law, Humanity, Existence

  Samuel Johnson (1848). “The Wisdom of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler”, p.396

• 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

• The necessities of our condition require a thousand offices of tenderness, which mere regard for the species will never dictate.

  Samuel Johnson

  Office, Humanity, Thousand

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy, Francis Pearson Walesby (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D..: The Rambler”, p.469

• Human happiness has always its abatements; the brightest sunshine of success is not without a cloud.

  Samuel Johnson

  Sunshine, Clouds, Humanity

  Samuel Johnson (1854). “Lives of the British Poets: In Four Volumes”, p.56

• Every man has frequent grievances which only the solicitude of friendship will discover and remedy, and which would remain for ever unheeded in the mighty heap of human calamity, were it only surveyed by the eye of general benevolence equally attentive to every misery.

  Samuel Johnson

  Eye, Men, Humanity

  Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.267

• We are unreasonably desirous to separate the goods of life from those evils which Providence has connected with them, and to catch advantages without paying the price at which they are offered to us. Every man wishes to be rich, but very few have the powers necessary to raise a sudden fortune, either by new discoveries, or by superiority of skill in any necessary employment; and among lower understandings many want the firmness and industry requisite to regular gain and gradual acquisitions.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Skills, Discovery

  Samuel Johnson (1824). “Works: With an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.243

• 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

• Man is a transitory being, and his designs must partake of the imperfections of their author. To confer duration is not always in our power. We must snatch the present moment, and employ it well, without too much solicitude for the future, and content ourselves with reflecting that our part is performed. He that waits for an opportunity to do much at once, may breathe out his life in idle wishes, and regret, in the last hour, his useless intentions and barren zeal.

  Samuel Johnson

  Regret, Opportunity, Men

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

• Faults and defects every work of man must have.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Humanity, Faults

  John Milton, Elijah Fenton, Samuel Johnson (1821). “Paradise lost”, p.33

• The hostility perpetually exercised between one man and another, is caused by the desire of many for that which only few can possess. Every man would be rich, powerful, and famous; yet fame, power, and riches, are only the names of relative conditions, which imply the obscurity, dependence, and poverty of greater numbers.

  Samuel Johnson

  Powerful, Men, Numbers

  Samuel Johnson (1784). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes..”, p.125

• I have often thought that there has rarely passed a life of which a judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful; for not only every man has, in the mighty mass of the world, great numbers in the same condition with himself, to whom his mistakes and miscarriages, escapes and expedients, would be of immediate and apparent use; but there is such a uniformity in the state of man, considered apart from adventitious and separable decorations and disguises, that there is scarce any possibility of good or ill but is common to human kind.

  Samuel Johnson

  Mistake, Miscarriage, Men

  Samuel Johnson (1840). “The Life and Writings of Samuel Johnson...”, p.259

• All envy would be extinguished, if it were universally known that there are none to be envied.

  Samuel Johnson

  Envy, Humanity, Would Be

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson...”, p.73

• The power, indeed, of every individual is small, and the consequence of his endeavours imperceptible, in a general prospect of the world. Providence has given no man ability to do much, that something might be left for every man to do. The business of life is carried on by a general co-operation; in which the part of any single man can be no more distinguished, than the effect of a particular drop when the meadows are floated by a summer shower: yet every drop increases the inundation, and every hand adds to the happiness or misery of mankind.

  Samuel Johnson

  Summer, Men, Hands

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An essay on his life and genius”, p.291

• Such is the state of every age, every sex, and every condition: all have their cares, either from nature or from folly; and whoever, therefore, finds himself inclined to envy another, should remember that he knows not the real condition which he desires to obtain, but is certain that by indulging a vicious passion, he must lessen that happiness which he thinks already too sparingly bestowed.

  Samuel Johnson

  Sex, Real, Passion

  Samuel Johnson (1836). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.: D., with an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.201

• We are all prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure.

  Samuel Johnson

  Humanity, Desire, Pleasure

  Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.183, Univ of California Press

• There is reason to suspect, that the distinctions of mankind have more show than value, when it is found that all agree to be weary alike of pleasures and of cares; that the powerful and the weak, the celebrated and obscure, join in one common wish, and implore from nature's hand the nectar of oblivion.

  Samuel Johnson

  Powerful, Hands, Humanity

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An essay on his life and genius”, p.127

• Men, however distinguished by external accidents or intrinsick qualities, have all the same wants, the same pains, and, as far as the senses are consulted, the same pleasures.

  Samuel Johnson

  Pain, Men, Humanity

  Samuel Johnson (1823). “The works of Samuel Johnson”, p.203

• It is natural for every man uninstructed to murmur at his condition, because, in the general infelicity of life, he feels his own miseries without knowing that they are common to all the rest of the species; and, therefore, though he will not be less sensible of pain by being told that others are equally tormented, he will at least be freed from the temptation of seeking, by perpetual changes, that ease which is no where to be found, and though his diseases still continue, he escapes the hazard of exasperating it by remedies.

  Samuel Johnson

  Pain, Men, Knowing

  Samuel Johnson (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay”, p.310

• Every class of society has its cant of lamentation, which is understood or regarded by none but themselves; and every part of life has its uneasiness, which those who do not feel them will not commiserate. An event which spreads distraction over half the commercial world, assembles the trading companies in councils and committees, and shakes the nerves of a thousand stockjobbers, is read by the landlord and the farmer with frigid indifference.

  Samuel Johnson

  Class, Humanity, Half

  Samuel Johnson (1836). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.: D., with an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.200

• The most useful truths are always universal, and unconnected with accidents and customs.

  Samuel Johnson

  Humanity, Universal, Accidents

  Samuel Johnson (1804). “The beauties of Samuel Johnson: maxims and observations. To which are now added, biographical anecdotes of the doctor, his life [&c.].”, p.368

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