Samuel Johnson Quotes About Learning

• Language is the dress of thought.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Learning, Thinking

  Lives of the English Poets "Cowley" (1779 - 1781)

• 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

• The chief art of learning, as Locke has observed, is to attempt but little at a time. The widest excursions of the mind are made by short flights frequently repeated; the most lofty fabrics of science are formed by the continued accumulation of single propositions.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Learning, Science

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.237

• Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

  Samuel Johnson

  Inspirational, Teaching, Learning

  Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 18 Apr. 1775)

• In order that all men might be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wisdom, Truth, Learning

  Samuel Johnson (1782). “The Beauties of Johnson: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous, Accurately Extracted from the Works of Dr. Samuel Johnson, and Arranged in Alphabetical Order, After the Manner of the Duke de la Roche-Foucault's Maxims”, p.69

• There is less flogging in our great schools than formerly-but then less is learned there; so what the boys get at one end they lose at the other.

  Samuel Johnson

  Education, Learning, School

  In James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 2, p. 407 (1775)

• Learn that the present hour alone is man's.

  Samuel Johnson

  Life, Learning, Men

  Samuel Johnson (1754). “Irene: A Tragedy. As it is Acted at the Theatre Royal in Drury-Lane. By Mr. Samuel Johnson”, p.35

• Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause a while from learning to be wise. There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,- Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wise, Learning, Eye

  'The Vanity of Human Wishes' (1749) l. 157

• I will venture to say there is more learning and science within the circumference of ten miles from where we now sit [in London], than in all the rest of the kingdom.

  Samuel Johnson

  Learning, Science, Venture

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1824). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., Comprehending an Account of His Studies, and Numerous Works, in Chronological Order: A Series of His Epistolary Correspondence and Conversations with Many Eminent Persons; and Various Original Pieces of His Composition, Never Before Published; the Whole Exhibiting a View of Literature and Literary Men in Great Britain, for Near Half a Century During which He Flourished”, p.66

• Nothing has tended more to retard the advancement of science than the disposition in vulgar minds to vilify what they cannot comprehend.

  Samuel Johnson

  Learning, Science, Mind

• To buried merit rise the tardy bust.

  Samuel Johnson

  Learning, Merit, Buried

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