Samuel Johnson Quotes About Security

• [C]ourage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.

  Samuel Johnson

  Meaningful, Courage, Men

  Samuel Johnson (1798). “Dr. Johnson's Table Talk: Containing Aphorisms on Literature, Life, and Manners; with Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons, Selected and Arranged from Dr. Boswell's Life of Johnson”, p.126

• The safe and general antidote against sorrow is employment. It is commonly observed, that among soldiers and seamen, though there is much kindness, there is little grief; they see their friend fall without any of that lamentation which is indulged in security and idleness, because they have no leisure to spare from the care of themselves; and whoever shall keep his thoughts equally busy will find himself equally unaffected with irretrievable losses.

  Samuel Johnson

  Kindness, Grief, Fall

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.306

• Misery is caused for the most part, not by a heavy crush of disaster, but by the corrosion of less visible evils, which canker enjoyment, and undermine security. The visit of an invader is necessarily rare, but domestic animosities allow no cessation.

  Samuel Johnson

  Crush, Evil, Misery

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1811). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, L. L. D.: In Twelve Volumes”, p.291

• Security will produce danger.

  Samuel Johnson

  Danger, Produce, Security

  Samuel Johnson (1788). “Letters to and from the Late Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: To which are Added Some Poems Never Before Printed”, p.139

• If, sir, men were all virtuous, I should with great alacrity teach them all to fly. But what would be the security of the good if the bad could at pleasure invade them from the sky? Against an army sailing through the clouds neither wall, nor mountains, nor seas could afford any security.

  Samuel Johnson

  Inspirational, Funny, Wall

  Samuel Johnson (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.270, Harvard University Press

• Such is the uncertainty of human affairs, that security and despair are equal follies; and as it is presumption and arrogance to anticipate triumphs, it is weakness and cowardice to prog-nosticate miscarriages.

  Samuel Johnson

  Miscarriage, Arrogance, Despair

  Samuel Johnson (1793). “The rambler”, p.263

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