Samuel Johnson: Trending quotes

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Samuel Johnson: 724 quotes26 likes

“As the Spanish proverb says, "He, who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him." So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.”

April 17, 1778, p. 396
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

“The endearing elegance of female friendship.”

Samuel Johnson book The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 46

“Let me rejoice in the light which Thou hast imparted; let me serve Thee with active zeal, humbled confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest shall be satisfied with knowledge.”

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 613

“Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”

Actually said by Charles de Gaulle, on leaving his presidency, as quoted inLife' (9 May 1969)
Misattributed

“Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed.”

Samuel Johnson book The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 11

“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.”

March 28, 1776, p. 296
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

“Superfluous lags the vet'ran on the stage.”

Source: Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), Line 308

“Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate,
Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?”

Source: Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), Line 345

“Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.”

1763
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)

“No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned … A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.”

August 31 and September 23, 1773
Also quoted in Boswell's Life of Johnson
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)

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

Samuel Johnson The Idler

No. 30 (November 11, 1758)
The Idler (1758–1760)

“Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything.”

September 17, 1773
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)

“NETWORK — Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.”

Samuel Johnson book A Dictionary of the English Language

A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

“Sir, you have but two topicks, yourself and me. I am sick of both.”

May 1776 http://books.google.com/books?id=8DcUAAAAYAAJ&q=%22Sir+you+have+but+two+topicks+yourself+and+me+I+am+sick+of+both%22&pg=PA53#v=onepage, p. 313 <br class="br">Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

“I am a great friend to public amusements; for they keep people from vice.”

1772
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)

“I know not whether more is to be dreaded from streets filled with soldiers accustomed to plunder, or from garrets filled with scribblers accustomed to lies.”

Samuel Johnson The Idler

No. 30 (November 11, 1758)
The Idler (1758–1760)

“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.”

The Patriot (1774)

“Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea.”

When asked by Maurice Morgann whom he considered to be the better poet — Smart or Derrick, 1783, p. 504
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

“A man will turn over half a library to make one book.”

April 6, 1775
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II

“The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.”

1778
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)