Samuel Johnson Quotes About Truth

• The future is purchased by the present.

  Samuel Johnson

  Truth, Future

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1809). “The Rambler”, p.94

• Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.

  Samuel Johnson

  Truth, Yield, People

  1763 Of sceptics. Remark, 21 Jul. Quoted in James Boswell The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), vol.1.

• 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

• Among the calamities of war may be numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates, and credulity encourages.

  Samuel Johnson

  Love, Courage, Truth

  The Idler no. 30 (11 Nov. 1758)

• A man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good practice.

  Samuel Johnson

  Truth, Honesty, Men

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1786). “Boswell's Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides, and Johnson's Diary of A Journey Into North Wales”, p.409

• I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him; you have no business with consequences, you are to tell the truth.

  Samuel Johnson

  Truth, Lying, Men

  Samuel Johnson, James Boswell (1818). “The table talk of Samuel Johnson”, p.100

• This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, slow rises worth by poverty depressed.

  Samuel Johnson

  Truth, Poverty, Truth Is

  Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.52, Univ of California Press

• The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in a few words.

  Samuel Johnson

  Truth, Expression, Excellence

  Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.76

• It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.

  Samuel Johnson

  Truth, Lying, World

  Samuel Johnson, James Boswell (1807). “Dr. Johnson's table-talk: aphorisms [&c.] selected and arranged from mr. Boswell's life of Johnson”, p.67

• Liberty is the parent of truth, but truth and decency are sometimes at variance. All men and all propositions are to be treated here as they deserve, and there are many who have no claim either to respect or decency.

  Samuel Johnson

  Truth, Men, Parent

  Samuel Johnson (1787). “The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: In thirteen volumes. ...”, p.268

• Truth allows no choice.

  Samuel Johnson

  Truth, Choices

  Samuel Johnson (1804). “The Lives of the Poets, Etc. [With a Portrait.]”, p.85

• Truth has no gradations; nothing which admits of increase can be so much what it is, as truth is truth. There may be a strange thing, and a thing more strange. But if a proposition be true, there can be none more true.

  Samuel Johnson

  Truth, May, Strange

  Samuel Johnson (1833). “The Life of Johnson: with Maxims and Observations: Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous, Accurately Selected from the Works of Dr. Samuel Johnson, and Arranged in Alphabetical Order”, p.269

• Truth, such as is necessary to the reputation of life, is always found where it is honestly sought.

  Samuel Johnson

  Truth, Reputation, Life Is

• Among the innumerable mortifications which waylay human arrogance on every side may well be reckoned our ignorance of the most common objects and effects, a defect of which we become more sensible by every attempt to supply it. Vulgar and inactive minds confound familiarity with knowledge and conceive themselves informed of the whole nature of things when they are shown their form or told their use; but the speculatist, who is not content with superficial views, harasses himself with fruitless curiosity, and still, as he inquires more, perceives only that he knows less.

  Samuel Johnson

  Education, Peace, Truth

You May Also Like:

James Boswell

Dick Clark

Alexander Pope

Joshua Reynolds

John Milton

Jonathan Swift

Oliver Goldsmith