Samuel Johnson: Man

Samuel Johnson was English writer. Explore interesting quotes on man.

Samuel Johnson: 724 quotes26 likes

“A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.”

Quoted in the "Apophthegms, Sentiments, Opinions and Occasional Reflections" of Sir John Hawkins (1787-1789) in Johnsonian Miscellanies (1897), vol. II, p. 11, edited by George Birkbeck Hill

“The first years of man must make provision for the last.”

Samuel Johnson book The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 27

“No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.”

Samuel Johnson

April 5, 1776, p. 302
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

“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.”

Samuel Johnson

March 1759, p. 97
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

“A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.”

Samuel Johnson

December 21, 1762
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

“Johnson observed, that "he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney."”

Samuel Johnson

1770, p. 181
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II

“It is man's own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age.”

Samuel Johnson

April 9, 1778
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

“If the man who turnips cries,
Cry not when his father dies,
'Tis a proof that he had rather
Have a turnip than his father.”

Samuel Johnson

Source: Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson (1786), p. 67

“If lawyers were to undertake no causes till they were sure they were just, a man might be precluded altogether from a trial of his claim, though, were it judicially examined, it might be found a very just claim.”

Samuel Johnson

August 15, 1773
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)

“I remember a passage in Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield," which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: "I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing."… There was another fine passage too which he struck out: "When I was a young man, being anxious to distinguish myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions. But I soon gave this over; for I found that generally what was new was false."”

Samuel Johnson

1779
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)

“A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected.”

Samuel Johnson book The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 12

“[Of Lord Chesterfield] This man, I thought, had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!”

Samuel Johnson

1754
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

“As with my hat upon my head
I walk'd along the Strand,
I there did meet another man
With his hat in his hand.”

Samuel Johnson

George Steevens, 310
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Johnsoniana

“There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.”

Samuel Johnson

March 21, 1776, p. 287
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II

“That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.”

Samuel Johnson book A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland

A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775), Inch Kenneth

“"Some," answered Imlac, "have indeed said that the soul is material, but I can scarcely believe that any man has thought it, who knew how to think; for all the conclusions of reason enforce the immateriality of mind, and all the notices of sense and investigations of science, concur to prove the unconsciousness of matter.”

Samuel Johnson book The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

Source: The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759), Chapter 48

“Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.”

Samuel Johnson

April 10, 1778
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

“All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to shew how much he can spare.”

Samuel Johnson

April 25, 1778, p. 403
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

“No man is much pleased with a companion, who does not increase, in some respect, his fondness for himself.”

Samuel Johnson The Rambler

No. 104 (16 March 1751)
The Rambler (1750–1752)

“I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, "Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task."”

Samuel Johnson

July 21, 1763, p. 126
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I