Samuel Johnson Quotes About Quality

• Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.

  Samuel Johnson

  Funny, Life, Being Yourself

  1750-2 In The Rambler.

• High people, sir, are the best; take a hundred ladies of quality, you'll find them better wives, better mothers, more willing to sacrifice their own pleasures to their children, than a hundred other woman.

  Samuel Johnson

  Mother, Children, Sacrifice

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1866). “The Life of Samuel Johnson”, p.239

• Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.

  Samuel Johnson

  Courage, Quality, Vices

  Samuel Johnson, James Boswell (1825). “The Table Talk of Dr. Johnson: Comprising Opinions and Anecdotes of Life and Literature, Men, Manners, and Morals”, p.276

• Persius has justly observed, that knowledge is nothing to him who is not known by others to possess it: to the scholar himself it is nothing with respect either to honour or advantage, for the world cannot reward those qualities which are concealed from it; with respect to others it is nothing, because it affords no help to ignorance or errour.

  Samuel Johnson

  Ignorance, Knowledge, Quality

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An essay on his life and genius”, p.199

• Good sense alone is a sedate and quiescent quality, which manages its possessions well, but does not increase them; it collects few materials for its own operations, and preserves safety, but never gains supremacy.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Success, Safety

  Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt (1854). “Johnson's Lives of the British poets completed by W. Hazlitt”, p.220

• Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him; and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities; as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Quality, Coins

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An essay on his life and genius”, p.143

• It is the quality of patriotism to be jealous and watchful, to observe all secret machinations, and to see publick dangers at a distance. The true lover of his country is ready to communicate his fears, and to sound the alarm, whenever he perceives the approach of mischief. But he sounds no alarm, when there is no enemy; he never terrifies his countrymen till he is terrified himself. The patriotism, therefore, may be justly doubted of him, who professes to be disturbed by incredibilities.

  Samuel Johnson

  Country, Distance, Jealous

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1811). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, L. L. D.: In Twelve Volumes”, p.135

• To those who have lived long together, everything heard and everything seen recalls some pleasure communicated, some benefit conferred, some petty quarrel or some slight endearment. Esteem of great powers, or amiable qualities newly discovered may embroider a day or a week, but a friendship of twenty years is interwoven with the texture of life.

  Samuel Johnson

  Friendship, Years, Long

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1888). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Together with A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”

• Every man, however hopeless his pretensions may appear, has some project by which he hopes to rise to reputation; some art by which he imagines that the attention of the world will be attracted; some quality, good or bad, which discriminates him from the common herd of mortals, and by which others may be persuaded to love, or compelled to fear him.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Men, Quality

• Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities, superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world; and, whatever apparent disadvantages he may suffer in the comparison with others, he has some invisible distinctions, some latent reserve of excellence, which he throws into the balance, and by which he generally fancies that it is turned in his favour.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Suffering, Excellence

  Samuel Johnson, Peter Martin (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.178, Harvard University Press

• He who fails to please in his salutation and address is at once rejected, and never obtains an opportunity of showing his latest excellences or essential qualities.

  Samuel Johnson

  Opportunity, Excellence, Quality

  Samuel Johnson (1836). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.: D., with an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.253

• No man is without some quality, by the due application of which he might deserve well of the world; and whoever he be that has but little in his power should be in haste to do that little, lest he be confounded with him that can do nothing.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Quality, World

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An essay on his life and genius”, p.166

• A simile, to be perfect, must both illustrate and ennoble the subject; must show it to the understanding in a clearer view, and display it to the fancy with greater dignity; but either of these qualities may be sufficient to recommend it.... That it may be complete, it is required to exhibit, independently of its references, a pleasing image; for a simile is said to be a short episode.

  Samuel Johnson

  Views, Perfect, Understanding

  Samuel Johnson, William Hazlitt (1854). “Johnson's Lives of the British poets completed by W. Hazlitt”, p.226

• Affectation is to be always distinguished from hypocrisy as being the art of counterfeiting those qualities, which we might with innocence and safety, be known to want. Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy; affectation part of the chosen trappings of folly.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Hypocrisy, Safety

  Samuel Johnson (1819). “The Beauties of Samuel Johnson: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous”, p.23

• Providence has fixed the limits of human enjoyment by immovable boundaries, and has set different gratifications at such a distance from each other, that no art or power can bring them together. This great law it is the business of every rational being to understand, that life may not pass away in an attempt to make contradictions consistent, to combine opposite qualities, and to unite things which the nature of their being must always keep asunder.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Distance, Law

  Samuel Johnson, William Page (1860). “Life and Writings”, p.148

• 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

• Genius, that power which constitutes a poet; that quality without which judgment is cold, and knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, combines, amplifies and animates.

  Samuel Johnson

  Quality, Energy, Genius

  Samuel Johnson, Peter Cunningham, Thomas Babington Macaulay Baron Macaulay (1861). “Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets”, p.322

• Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Quality, Degrees

  Samuel Johnson (1827). “The Rambler”, p.135

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