Samuel Johnson Quotes About Prudence

• It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination.

  Samuel Johnson

  Marriage, Wedding, People

  Samuel Johnson, James Boswell (1825). “The Table Talk of Dr. Johnson: Comprising Opinions and Anecdotes of Life and Literature, Men, Manners, and Morals”, p.163

• Some read for style, and some for argument: one has little care about the sentiment, he observes only how it is expressed; another regards not the conclusion, but is diligent to mark how it is inferred; they read for other purposes than the attainment of practical knowledge; and are no more likely to grow wise by an examination of a treatise of moral prudence, than an architect to inflame his devotion by considering attentively the proportions of a temple.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wise, Reading, Style

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An essay on his life and genius”, p.292

• Prudence is an attitude that keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy.

  Samuel Johnson

  Attitude, Doe, Safe

• There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.

  Samuel Johnson

  Distance, May, Too Much

  Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.119, Univ of California Press

• When desperate ills demand a speedy cure, Distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly.

  Samuel Johnson

  Demand, Desperate, Cowardice

  Samuel Johnson (1809). “Works”, p.225

• Those authors are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of prudence.

  Samuel Johnson

  School, Prudence, Axioms

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The works of the English poets, from Chaucer to Cowper: including the series edited with prefaces, biographical and critical”, p.277

• The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestic privacies, and display the minute details of daily life, were exterior appendages are cast aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and virtue.

  Samuel Johnson

  Greatness, Men, Details

  Samuel Johnson (1840). “The Life and Writings of Samuel Johnson...”, p.260

• 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

• The great end of prudence is to give cheerfulness to those hours which splendor cannot gild, and acclamation cannot exhilarate.

  Samuel Johnson

  Giving, Splendor, Hours

  Samuel Johnson (1820). “The Rambler”, p.358

• Remember that nothing will supply the want of prudence, and that negligence and irregularity long continued will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible.

  Samuel Johnson

  Long, Genius, Useless

• Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance, and the parent of Liberty.

  Samuel Johnson

  Daughter, Parent, Liberty

  Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.19

• It was said of Euripides, that every verse was a precept; and it may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil and economical prudence.

  Samuel Johnson

  May, Said, Prudence

  William Shakespeare, Samuel Johnson, George Steevens (1824). “The Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare”, p.25

• Prudence operates on life in the same manner as rule of composition; it produces vigilance rather than elevation; rather prevents loss than procures advantage; and often miscarriages, but seldom reaches either power or honor.

  Samuel Johnson

  Life, Success, Miscarriage

• The fortitude which has encountered no dangers, that prudence which has surmounted no difficulties, that integrity which has been attacked by no temptation, can at best be considered but as gold not yet brought to the test, of which therefore the true value cannot be assigned.

  Samuel Johnson

  Integrity, Temptation, Gold

  Samuel Johnson, William Page (1860). “Life and Writings”, p.120

• The first years of man must make provision for the last.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Years, Lasts

  Samuel Johnson (2012). “Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia”, p.45, Simon and Schuster

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