Samuel Johnson Quotes

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There is now less flogging in our great schools than formerly, but then less is learned there; so that what the boys get at one end they lose at the other.

Samuel Johnson
No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability.

Samuel Johnson
Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.

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

Samuel Johnson
It was not for me to bandy civilities with my Sovereign.

Samuel Johnson
Johnson: I had no notion that I was wrong or irreverent to my tutor.
Boswell: That, Sir, was great fortitude of mind.
Johnson: No, Sir; stark insensibility.

Samuel Johnson
Every man has a lurking wish to appear considerable in his native place.

Samuel Johnson
Of Pembroke College:
Sir, we are a nest of singing birds.

Samuel Johnson
Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.

Samuel Johnson
A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately after his wife died: Johnson said, it was the triumph of hope over experience.

Samuel Johnson
The greater, far the greater number of those who rave and rail, and inquire and accuse, neither suspect nor fear, nor care for the publick; but hope to force their way to riches, by virulence and invective, and are vehement and clamorous, only that they may be sooner hired to be silent.

Samuel Johnson
He [God] will not leave his promises unfulfilled, nor his threats unexecuted…Neither can he want power to execute his purposes; he who spoke, and the world was made, can speak again, and it will perish.

Samuel Johnson
Corneille is to Shakespeare…as a clipped hedge is to a forest.

Samuel Johnson
As it is necessary not to invite robbery by supineness, so it is our duty not to suppress tenderness by suspicion; it is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

Samuel Johnson
I would advise you Sir, to study algebra, if you are not already an adept in it: your head would be less muddy, and you will leave off tormenting your neighbors about paper and packthread, while we all live together in a world that is bursting with sin and sorrow.

Samuel Johnson
Of all the griefs that harrass the distressed,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest;
Fate never wounds more deep the gen'rous heart,
Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart.

Samuel Johnson
Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.

Samuel Johnson
What we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention; so there is but one half to be employed on what we read.

Samuel Johnson
Worth seeing? yes; but not worth going to see.

Samuel Johnson
Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.

Samuel Johnson
I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.

Samuel Johnson
Want of tenderness, he always alleged, was want of parts, and was no less a proof of stupidity than depravity.

Samuel Johnson
Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such,
We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much;
Who, born for the Universe, narrowed his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.

Samuel Johnson
When the hoary Sage replied,
"Come, my lad, and drink some beer."

Samuel Johnson
A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him. A man when he gets into a higher sphere, into other habits of life, cannot keep up all his former connections. Then, Sir, those who knew him formerly upon a level with themselves, may think that they ought still to be treated as on a level, which cannot be; and an acquaintance in a former situation may bring out things which it would be very disagreeable to have mentioned before higher company, though, perhaps, everybody knows of them.

Samuel Johnson
There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed.

Samuel Johnson
A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.

Samuel Johnson
LEXICOGRAPHER — A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.

Samuel Johnson
Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim; and when you are calculating, calculate.

Samuel Johnson
Liberty is, to the lowest rank of every nation, little more than the choice of working or starving.

Samuel Johnson