Samuel Johnson Quotes - Page 66

• Inquiries into the heart are not for man.

  Samuel Johnson

  Heart, Men, Inquiry

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets: Cowley. Denham. Milton. Butler. Rochester. Roscommon. Otway. Waller. Pomfret. Dorset. Stepney. J. Phillips. Walsh. Dryden. Smith. Duke. King. Sprat. Halifax. Parnell. Garth. Rowe. Addison. Hughes. Sheffield, duke of Buckinghamshire”, p.248

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• A newswriter is a man without virtue, who lies at home for his own profit.

  Samuel Johnson

  Lying, Home, Men

  Samuel Johnson (1846). “Works of Samuel Johnson”, p.385

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• In Shakespeare's plays, the mourner hastening to bury his friend is all the time colliding with the reveller hastening to his wine.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wine, Play, Shakespeare's Plays

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• In discussing these exceptions from the course of nature, the first question is, whether the fact be justly stated. That which is strange is delightful, and a pleasing error is not willingly detected.

  Samuel Johnson

  Errors, Firsts, Facts

  Samuel Johnson, Queen Victoria, Neil Munro (2014). “Journeys in Scotland: Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland, Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands, The Clyde: River and Firth”, p.37, Palimpsest Book Production Limited

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• We found in the course of our journey the convenience of having disencumbered ourselves, by laying aside whatever we could spare; for it is not to be imagined without experience, how in climbing crags and treading bogs, and winding through narrow and obstructed passages, a little bulk will hinder, and a little weight will burden; or how often a man that has pleased himself at home with his own resolution, will, in the hour of darkness and fatigue, be content to leave behind him everything but himself.

  Samuel Johnson

  Home, Journey, Men

  Samuel Johnson (2010). “Journey to the Hebrides: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland & The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.24, Canongate Books

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• Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wish, Impossible, Difficult

  Quoted in William Seward, Supplement to the Anecdotes of Distinguished Persons (1797)

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• To wipe all tears from off all faces is a task too hard for mortals; but to alleviate misfortunes is often within the most limited power: yet the opportunities which every day affords of relieving the most wretched of human beings are overlooked and neglected with equal disregard of policy and goodness.

  Samuel Johnson

  Opportunity, Tears, Tasks

  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.169

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• 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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• The joy of life is variety.

  Samuel Johnson

  Joy, Life Is, Joy Of Life

  "The Idler" No. 39. Essay by Samuel Johnson, www.gutenberg.org. January 13, 1759.

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• Whisky making is the art of making poison pleasant

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Poison, Whisky

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• ..to write and to live are very different. Many who praise virtue, do no more than praise it.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Different, Praise

  Samuel Johnson (1810). “The Works of the English Poets, from Chaucer to Cowper: Including the Series Edited with Prefaces, Biographical and Critical”, p.505

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• 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

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• We often look with indifference on the successive parts of something that, if the whole were seen together, would shake us with emotion.

  Samuel Johnson

  Together, Looks, Emotion

  Samuel Johnson, Peter Martin (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.229, Harvard University Press

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• True enjoyments also keep people from vice.

  Samuel Johnson

  People, Vices, Enjoyment

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• Youth enters the world with very happy prejudices in her own favour.

  Samuel Johnson

  Prejudice, World, Favour

  Samuel Johnson (1761). “The Rambler: In Four Volumes”, p.119

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• To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed armies, to gain or to keep unprofitable possessions.

  Samuel Johnson

  Army, Pride, Age

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1837). “Lives of the poets. Lives of eminent persons. Political tracts. Philological tracts. Miscellaneous tracts. Dedications. Opinions on questions of law. Reviews and criticisms. Journey to the Western islands of Scotland. Prayers and meditations”, p.412

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• Quack: A boastful pretender to arts which he does not understand. A vain boastful pretender to physick; An artful, tricking practitioner in physick.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Doe, Vain

  Samuel Johnson (1839). “Dictionary of the English Language ...”

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• A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Jail, Sailing

  In James Boswell 'The Life of Samuel Johnson' (1791) vol. 1, p. 348 (16 March 1759).

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• Among other pleasing errors of young minds is the opinion of their own importance. He that has not yet remarked, how little attention his contemporaries can spare from themselves, conceives all eyes turned upon himself, and imagines everyone that approaches him to be an enemy or a follower, an admirer or a spy.

  Samuel Johnson

  Eye, Errors, Mind

  Samuel Johnson (1968). “Essays from the Rambler, Adventurer, and Idler”, p.20, Yale University Press

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• Ease, a neutral state between pain and pleasure ... if it is not rising into pleasure will be falling towards pain.

  Samuel Johnson

  Pain, Fall, Rising

  Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy, Francis Pearson Walesby (1825). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D..: The Rambler”, p.399

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• Excise: A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.

  Samuel Johnson

  Judging, Hateful, Common

  A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

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• Expectation improperly indulged in must end in disappointment.

  Samuel Johnson

  Disappointment, Expectations, Ends

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1799). “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.426

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• I would injure no man, and should provoke no resentment. I would relieve every distress, and should enjoy the benedictions of gratitude. I would choose my friends among the wise and my wife among the virtuous, and therefore should be in no danger from treachery or unkindness. My children should by my care be learned and pious, and would repay to my age what their childhood had received.

  Samuel Johnson

  Wise, Gratitude, Children

  Samuel Johnson, Abraham Raimbach, Robert Smirke (1819). “Rasselas”, p.48

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• If useless thoughts could be expelled from the mind, all the valuable parts of our knowledge would more frequently recur.

  Samuel Johnson

  Mind, Useless, Valuable

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

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• It is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, if they can have any thing else to amuse them.

  Samuel Johnson

  Reading, Writing, People

  Quoted in James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) (entry for 1 May 1783)

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