Samuel Johnson Quotes - Page 14

• Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Animal, Equality

  Samuel Johnson, James Boswell (1818). “The table talk of Samuel Johnson”, p.120

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• We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Believe, Long

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1837). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq”, p.467

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• I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Powerful, Criticism

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

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• The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking

  Samuel Johnson

  Love, Life, Enthusiasm

  1750-2 In The Rambler.

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• The vicious count their years; virtuous, their acts.

  Samuel Johnson

  Years, Making A Difference, Charity

  Samuel Johnson (2011). “Dictionary of the English Language (Complete and Unabridged)”, p.2238, BookBaby

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• Abuse is often of service. There is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Silence, Abuse

  Samuel Johnson (1840). “The Life and Writings of Samuel Johnson...”, p.51

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• It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.

  Samuel Johnson

  Book, Fall, Writing

  Samuel Johnson (1966). “Johnsonian miscellanies”, Constable

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• Oats. A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.

  Samuel Johnson

  Horse, Food, Oats

  A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

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• When a man marries a widow his jealousies revert to the past: no man is as good as his wife says her first husband was

  Samuel Johnson

  Jealousy, Husband, Past

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• Gloomy calm of idle vacancy.

  Samuel Johnson

  Vacancy, Calm, Gloomy

  Samuel Johnson (2014). “The Letters of Samuel Johnson, Volume I: 1731-1772”, p.238, Princeton University Press

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• Genius now and then produces a lucky trifle. We still read the Dove of Anacreon, and Sparrow of Catullus; and a writer naturally pleases himself with a performance which owes nothing to the subject.

  Samuel Johnson

  Lucky, Genius, Sparrows

  Samuel Johnson (1803). “The Lives of the Most Prominent English Poets: With Critical Observations on Their Works”, p.175

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• The gloomy and the resentful are always found among those who have nothing to do or who do nothing.

  Samuel Johnson

  Found, Gloomy, Ennui

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay”, p.597

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• Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. It becomes cheap as it becomes vulgar, and will no longer raise expectation or animate enterprise.

  Samuel Johnson

  Expectations, Gold, Scarcity

  Samuel Johnson, Elizabeth Carter, Samuel Richardson, Catherine Talbot (1825). “The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752”, p.235

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• To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.

  Samuel Johnson

  Happiness, Inner Peace, Trying

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1837). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq”, p.343

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• A quibble is to Shakespeare what luminous vapours are to the traveller: he follows it at all adventures; it is sure to lead him out of his way and sure to engulf him in the mire.

  Samuel Johnson

  Adventure, Vapour, Way

  'The Plays of William Shakespeare, with Notes' (1765) preface (Yale ed., p. 74)

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• A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Trouble, Habit

  Samuel Johnson, A.F. Neuwieller (1857). “The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia: A Tale”, p.38

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• To make dictionaries is dull work.

  Samuel Johnson

  Dull, Dictionary

  A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

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• In misery's darkest cavern known, His useful care was ever nigh Where hopeless anguish pour'd his groan, And lonely want retir'd to die.

  Samuel Johnson

  Lonely, Loneliness, Care

  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.366

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• Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.

  Samuel Johnson

  Hope, Frustration, Extinction

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy, Francis Pearson Walesby (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D..: The Adventurer and Idler”, p.322

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• Solitude is dangerous to reason, without being favourable to virtue. Remember that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad.

  Samuel Johnson

  Mad, Solitude, Remember

  "Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. during the last twenty years of his life".

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• The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.

  Samuel Johnson

  Dream, Reality, Men

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• Among the numerous stratagems by which pride endeavors to recommend folly to regard, there is scarcely one that meets with less success than affectation, or a perpetual disguise of the real character by fictitious appearances.

  Samuel Johnson

  Real, Character, Pride

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.131

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• He who would govern his actions by the laws of virtue must regulate his thoughts by those of reason.

  Samuel Johnson

  Law, Action, Virtue

  Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.163, Univ of California Press

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• Misfortunes should always be expected.

  Samuel Johnson

  Should, Expected, Misfortunes

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• He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.

  Samuel Johnson

  Greatness, Thinking, Dull

  Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 28 Mar. 1775)

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