Samuel Johnson Quotes About Students

• Your aspirations are your possibilities.

  Samuel Johnson

  Friendship, Dream, Attitude

• The mind is refrigerated by interruption; the thoughts are diverted from the principle subject; the reader is weary, he suspects not why; and at last throws away the book, which he has too diligently studied.

  Samuel Johnson

  Book, Mind, Principles

  William Shakespeare, Edmond Malone, Samuel Johnson (1840). “The Plays and Poems of William Shakespeare: With Notes Critical, Historical and Explanatory, Selected from the Most Eminent Commentators”, p.18

• The student who would build his knowledge on solid foundations, and proceed by just degrees to the pinnacles of truth, is directed by the great philosopher of France to begin by doubting of his own existence. In like manner, whoever would complete any arduous and intricate enterprise, should, as soon as his imagination can cool after the first blaze of hope, place before his own eyes every possible embarrassment that may retard or defeat him. He should first question the probability of success, and then endeavour to remove the objections that he has raised.

  Samuel Johnson

  Eye, Imagination, Doubt

  Samuel Johnson (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.77

• Books, says Lord Bacon, can never teach us the use of books; the student must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce his speculations to practice. No man should think so highly of himself as to think he can receive but little light from books; no one so meanly, as to believe he can discover nothing but what is to be learned from them.

  Samuel Johnson

  Believe, Book, Men

• A student may easily exhaust his life in comparing divines and moralists without any practical regard to morals and religion; he may be learning not to live but to reason... while the chief use of his volumes is unthought of, his mind is unaffected, and his life is unreformed.

  Samuel Johnson

  Mind, Use, May

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1823). “The Works of Samuel Johnson: LL.D. A New Edition in Twelve Volumes. With an Essay on His Life and Genius, by Arthur Murphy, Esq”, p.102

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