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Samuel Johnson Quotes
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Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr Johnson, was an English writer who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, playwright, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor, and lexicographer. Religiously, he was a devout Anglican, and politically a committed Tory. The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography describes Johnson as "arguably the most distinguished man of letters in English history". He is the subject of James Boswell's The Life of Samuel Johnson, described by Walter Jackson Bate as "the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature".Born in Lichfield, Staffordshire, Johnson attended Pembroke College, Oxford, for just over a year, but a lack of funds forced him to leave. After working as a teacher, he moved to London, where he began to write for The Gentleman's Magazine. His early works include the biography Life of Mr Richard Savage, the poems London and The Vanity of Human Wishes, and the play Irene.

After nine years of work, Johnson's A Dictionary of the English Language was published in 1755. It had a far-reaching effect on Modern English and has been acclaimed as "one of the greatest single achievements of scholarship". This work brought Johnson popularity and success. Until the completion of the Oxford English Dictionary 150 years later, Johnson's was the pre-eminent British dictionary. His later works included essays, an influential annotated edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare, and the widely read tale The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia. In 1763, he befriended James Boswell, with whom he later travelled to Scotland; Johnson described their travels in A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland. Towards the end of his life, he produced the massive and influential Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets, a collection of biographies and evaluations of 17th- and 18th-century poets.

Johnson was a tall and robust man. His odd gestures and tics were disconcerting to some on first meeting him. Boswell's Life, along with other biographies, documented Johnson's behaviour and mannerisms in such detail that they have informed the posthumous diagnosis of Tourette syndrome, a condition not defined or diagnosed in the 18th century. After a series of illnesses, he died on the evening of 13 December 1784, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. In the years following his death, Johnson began to be recognised as having had a lasting effect on literary criticism, and he was claimed by some to be the only truly great critic of English literature. Wikipedia  

✵ 18. September 1709 – 13. December 1784
Samuel Johnson photo
Samuel Johnson: 362   quotes 26   likes

Samuel Johnson Quotes

“Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.”

Samuel Johnson

The Life of Pope http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5101
Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)

Graduation , Confidence , Self-confidence

“The Churchyard abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo.”

Samuel Johnson

The Life of Gray
Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)

“There is in this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality), but exchange of ideas in conversation.”

Samuel Johnson

Source: Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson (1786), p. 266

World , Idea

“Paradise Lost' is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.”

Samuel Johnson

The Life of Milton
Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)

Books , Forgetting

“I [Boswell] happened to say, it would be terrible if he should not find a speedy opportunity of returning to London, and be confined in so dull a place.
JOHNSON: "Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters. It would not be terrible, though I were to be detained some time here."”

Samuel Johnson

August 6, 1763, p. 134
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

Time

“A frame of adamant, a soul of fire,
No dangers fright him, and no labors tire.”

Samuel Johnson

Source: Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), Line 193

Soul

“Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.”

Samuel Johnson book The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 26

Pain , Marriage , Pleasure

“Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him; and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities; as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight.”

Samuel Johnson

The Patriot (1774)

Appearance , Falseness

“To let friendship die away by negligence and silence, is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary pilgrimage.”

Samuel Johnson

March 20, 1782
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

Friendship , Silence

“Greek, sir, is like lace; every man gets as much of it as he can.”

Samuel Johnson

1780
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

“Sir, I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.”

Samuel Johnson

November 1784, p. 566
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

“The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honourable gentleman has with such spirit and decency charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience.”

Samuel Johnson

Pitt's Reply to Walpole, Speech, March 6, 1741. This is the composition of Johnson, founded on some note or statement of the actual speech. Johnson said, "That speech I wrote in a garret, in Exeter Street." Boswell: Life of Johnson, 1741
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Youth

“Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any high degree; only about as much as is used in the lower kinds of poetry.”

Samuel Johnson

July 6, 1763, p. 120
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

Exercises , Imagination

“I have, all my life long, been lying till noon; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good.”

Samuel Johnson

September 14, 1773
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)

Life , Men , Lying , Sincerity

“So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.”

Samuel Johnson

Feb. 15, 1766, p. 145
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II

Men , People , Nature

“Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanicks laughs at strength.”

Samuel Johnson book The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 13; variant with modernized spelling: Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanics laughs at strength.

Knowledge

“He who praises everybody praises nobody.”

Samuel Johnson

Johnson's Works (1787), vol. XI, p. 216; This set included the Life of Samuel Johnson by Sir John Hawkins

“Let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known.”

Samuel Johnson

1773
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)

Distant , Country

“The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.”

Samuel Johnson

Vol. I, p. 137
Letters to and from Dr. Samuel Johnson
Variant: The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

Travel , Imagination , Thinking , Reality

“That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?”

Samuel Johnson The Rambler

No. 148 (17 August 1751)
The Rambler (1750–1752)

Motivation

“Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.”

Samuel Johnson book The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 26

“Come, let me know what it is that makes a Scotchman happy!”

Samuel Johnson

October 23, 1773
Ordering a glass of whisky for himself
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)

Happiness

“Was ever poet so trusted before?”

Samuel Johnson

1774
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)

“Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition.”

Samuel Johnson The Rambler

No. 151 (27 August 1751). http://books.google.com/books?id=VvhDAAAAYAAJ&q=%22avarice+is+generally+the+last+passion+of+those+lives+of+which+the+first+part+has+been+squandered+in+pleasure+and+the+second+devoted+to+ambition%22&pg=PA262#v=onepage
The Rambler (1750–1752)

Pleasure , Passion , Parting

“Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.”

Samuel Johnson

The Life of Addison
Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)

Night

“Example is always more efficacious than precept.”

Samuel Johnson book The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 29

“Here's to the next insurrection of the negroes in the West Indies.”

Samuel Johnson

September 23, 1777, p. 363
A toast made by Johnson, as Boswell states, "when in company with some very grave men at Oxford".
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

“It might as well be said, "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat."”

Samuel Johnson

In response to a line of a tragedy that went 'Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free." June 1784
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

“With these celestial Wisdom calms the mind,
And makes the happiness she does not find.”

Samuel Johnson

Source: Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), Line 367

Wisdom , Happiness

“Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes,
And pause a while from learning to be wise.
There mark what ills the scholar's life assail —
Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.”

Samuel Johnson

Source: Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), Line 157

Life , World , Learning , Envy

“A desire for knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being, whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all he has to get knowledge.”

Samuel Johnson London

Dr. Johnson’s Table Talk (London: 1807), p. 64

Feeling , Nature , Knowledge

“Was there ever yet any thing written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?”

Samuel Johnson

Source: Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson (1786), p. 281

“The act of writing itself distracts the thoughts, and what is read twice is commonly better remembered than what is transcribed.”

Samuel Johnson The Idler

No. 74 (September 15, 1759)
The Idler (1758–1760)

Reading

“Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay.”

Samuel Johnson

Source: Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Line added to Goldsmith's Deserted Village

“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

1781, p. 479
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

Love , Pain , Friendship

“He delighted to tread upon the brink of meaning.”

Samuel Johnson

The Life of Dryden
Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)

“Round numbers are always false.”

Samuel Johnson

Quoted in the "Apophthegms, Sentiments, Opinions and Occasional Reflections" of Sir John Hawkins (1787-1789) in Johnsonian Miscellanies (1897), vol. II, p. 2, edited by George Birkbeck Hill

Falseness

“Of all the Griefs that harrass the Distrest,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful Jest”

Samuel Johnson

London: A Poem (1738) http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/london2.html, lines 166–167

“Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things.”

Samuel Johnson

Boulter's Monument. (Supposed to have been inserted by Dr. Johnson, 1745.)
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Men , God , Daughters

“Hawkesworth said of Johnson, "You have a memory that would convict any author of plagiarism in any court of literature in the world."”

Samuel Johnson

Kearsley, 600
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Johnsoniana

World , Literature , Memory

“Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.”

Samuel Johnson

Quoted in Anecdotes of Johnson by Hannah More in Johnsonian Miscellanies (1897), vol. II, p. 197, edited by George Birkbeck Hill. More had quoted this remark in a letter to her sister (April 1782)

“Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.”

Samuel Johnson book The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 1

Youth , Age , Hope , History

“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 The Rambler

No. 79 (18 December 1750)
The Rambler (1750–1752)

Suffering , Cheating

“I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.”

Samuel Johnson book The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 26

“Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason.”

Samuel Johnson

The Life of Milton
Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)

Pleasure , Truth , Art , Imagination

“It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.”

Samuel Johnson

March 31, 1778, p. 372
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

Truth , World , Lying

“Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all.”

Samuel Johnson

From Sir John Hawkins's Life of Johnson, Apothegms (1787)

Books

“Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.”

Samuel Johnson

In response to Hannah More wondering why Milton could write Paradise Lost but only poor sonnets. June 13, 1784, p. 542
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

“All this [wealth] excludes but one evil,—poverty.”

Samuel Johnson

1777
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)

Evil , Wealth

“But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.”

Samuel Johnson

July 14, 1763, p. 123
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

Thinking , Housing