Samuel Johnson Quotes About Joy

• Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought; our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Happy, Laughter

  "The Beauties of Samuel Johnson: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous".

• How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place consigned, Our own felicity we make or find. With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.

  Samuel Johnson

  Kings, Heart, Law

  Lines added to Oliver Goldsmith's The Traveller (1764)

• The joy of life is variety; the tenderest love requires to be rekindled by intervals of absence.

  Samuel Johnson

  Diversity, Joy, Life Is

  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.156

• Happiness is enjoyed only in proportion as it is known; and such is the state or folly of man, that it is known only by experience of its contrary.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Men, Joy

  John Hawkesworth, Samuel Johnson, Richard Bathurst, Joseph Warton (1793). “The Adventurer”, p.216

• The fiction of happiness is propagated by every tongue and confirmed by every look till at last all profess the joy which they do not feel and consent to yield to the general delusion.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Yield, Joy

  Samuel Johnson (1800). “The Idler: With Additional Essays”, p.63

• The size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Laughter, Men

  "Johnsoniana, Or, Supplement to Boswell: Being Anecdotes and Sayings of Dr. Johnson".

• The gratification of curiosity rather frees us from uneasiness than confers pleasure; we are more pained by ignorance than delighted by instruction. Curiosity is the thirst of the soul; it inflames and torments us, and makes us taste every thing with joy, however otherwise insipid, by which it may be quenched.

  Samuel Johnson

  Ignorance, Joy, Soul

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1836). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: with an essay on his life and genius”, p.163

• Enlarge my life with multitude of days, In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays; Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know, That life protracted is protracted woe. Time hovers o'er, impatient to destroy, And shuts up all the passages of joy.

  Samuel Johnson

  Time, Joy, Woe

  'The Vanity of Human Wishes' (1749) l. 255

• For life affords no higher pleasure, than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified. He that labours in any great or laudable undertaking, has his fatigues first supported by hope, and afterwards rewarded by joy... To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.

  Samuel Johnson

  Motivational, Joy, Wish

  "The Wisdom of the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler".

• Year chases year, decay pursues decay,
  Still drops some joy from with'ring life away;
  New forms arise, and diff'rent views engage

  Samuel Johnson

  Time, Views, Years

  Samuel Johnson, Alexander Chalmers, Arthur Murphy (1823). “The Works of Samuel Johnson: An essay on the life and genius of Dr. Johnson [by A. Murphy] Poems.- v. 2-4. The rambler.- v. 5. The idler. History of Rasselas, prince of Abissinia.- v. 6-8. The lives of the English poets.- v. 9. Lives of eminent persons. Letters, selected from the collection of Mrs. Piozzi and others. Prayers and meditations.- v. 10. Philological tracts, &c.- v. 11. Miscellaneous tracts, &c. Dedications. Reviews and criticisms. Tales of imagination. The adventurers.-”, p.217

• The joy of life is variety.

  Samuel Johnson

  Joy, Life Is, Joy Of Life

  "The Idler" No. 39. Essay by Samuel Johnson, www.gutenberg.org. January 13, 1759.

• 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

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