Samuel Johnson cytaty

strona 12

„Gdy dwóch Anglików się spotyka, mówią przede wszystkim o pogodzie.”

„Małżeństwa byłyby na ogół szczęśliwe, gdyby kojarzył je Lord Kanclerz po wnikliwym rozważeniu charakterów i okoliczności, a żadna ze stron nie miałaby w tej sprawie nic do powiedzenia.”

„Podnosisz głos, podczas gdy powinieneś wzmocnić swoje argumenty.”

„Choroba jest na ogół początkiem tego równania, którego wynikiem jest śmierć.”

„Jeżeli chcemy, by ludzie mówili prawdę, przede wszystkim nauczmy się jej słuchać.”

„Jeśli człowiek, idąc przez życie, nie zawiera nowych przyjaźni, wkrótce zostanie zupełnie sam. Przyjaźnie należy stale kultywować.”

„Odrobina pożądliwości nadaje dopiero życiu rozmach.”

„Żaden człowiek nie jest hipokrytą jedynie dla przyjemności.”

„Naturalny ruch ludzkiego umysłu odbywa się nie od przyjemności do przyjemności, ale od nadziei do nadziei.”

„Dobroć jest w naszej mocy, ale czułość już nie.”

„Fontanna zadowolenia wytryska z umysłu; a ten co posiadł tak małą wiedzę o ludzkiej naturze, że szuka szczęścia przez zmianę czegoś innego niż własnych skłonności, zmarnuje życie na bezowocnych wysiłkach i pomnoży żal, którego chciał się pozbyć.”

„Ponowne małżeństwo – to triumf nadziei nad doświadczeniem.”

„Sztuka pamiętania to sztuka koncentracji.”

„Tylko dureń nie pisze dla pieniędzy.”

„Patriotyzm jest ostatnim schronieniem szubrawców.”

„W życiu podążamy za potrzebami, a nie za zadowoleniem.”

„Dlaczego najgłośniej o wolności krzyczą nadzorcy niewolników?”

„W butelce rozgoryczeni szukają pocieszenia, tchórzliwi – odwagi, nieśmiali – pewności.”

„Ten, kto staje się potworem, zrzuca z siebie ciężar bycia człowiekiem.”

„Wspomnienia i przewidywania wypełniają prawie cały czas teraźniejszy.”

„Piekło jest wybrukowane dobrymi chęciami.”

„Poeta może sławić wiele dziewcząt, z którymi bałby się ożenić.”

„Człowiek zdolny to taki, który się ze mną zgadza.”

„Wiele ma przykrości małżeństwo, lecz w bezżeństwie nie masz rozkoszy.”

„Są dwa rodzaje wiedzy: kiedy posiadamy wiedzę w jakimś przedmiocie lub wiemy, gdzie znaleźć potrzebne informacje.”

“No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.”

“I am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those they provoke.”

“I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject.”

“A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity.”

“There Poetry shall tune her sacred voice,
And wake from ignorance the Western World.”

“This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.”

“The true Genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.”

“He was so generally civil that nobody thanked him for it.”

“Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound; great debts are like cannon, of loud noise but little danger.”

“All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it.”

“Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment.”

“He that thinks with more extent than another will want words of larger meaning; he that thinks with more subtilty will seek for terms of more nice discrimination; and where is the wonder, since words are but the images of things, that he who never knew the original should not know the copies?
Yet vanity inclines us to find faults any where rather than in ourselves. He that reads and grows no wiser, seldom suspects his own deficiency; but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood?”

“The student who would build his knowledge on solid foundations, and proceed by just degrees to the pinnacles of truth, is directed by the great philosopher of France to begin by doubting of his own existence. In like manner, whoever would complete any arduous and intricate enterprise, should, as soon as his imagination can cool after the first blaze of hope, place before his own eyes every possible embarrassment that may retard or defeat him. He should first question the probability of success, and then endeavour to remove the objections that he has raised.”

“My friend was of opinion that when a man of rank appeared in that character [as an author], he deserved to have his merit handsomely allowed.”

“Here closed in death th' attentive eyes
That saw the manners in the face.”

“Why, Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them.”

“Were it not for imagination, Sir, a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a Duchess.”

“He was a very good hater.”

“Wretched un-idea'd girls.”

“I refute it thus.”

“If you are tired of London, you are tired of life. ”

“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.”

“Enlarge my life with multitude of days!”

“The change of religion in Scotland, eager and vehement as it was, raised an epidemical enthusiasm, compounded of sullen scrupulousness and warlike ferocity, which, in a people whom idleness resigned to their own thoughts, and who conversing only with each other, suffered no dilution of their zeal from the gradual influx of new opinions, was long transmitted in its full strength from the old to the young, but by trade and intercourse with England, is now visibly abating, and giving way too fast to their laxity of practice and indifference of opinion, in which men, not sufficiently instructed to find the middle point, too easily shelter themselves from rigour and constraint.”

“Of the proportion, which the product of any region bears to the people, an estimate is commonly made according to the pecuniary price of the necessities of life; which is never certain, because it supposes what is far from truth, that the value of money is always the same, and so measures an unknown quantity by an uncertain standard. It is competent enough when the markets of the same country, at different times, and those times not too distant, are to be compared; but of very little use for the purpose of making one nation acquainted with the state of another.”

“Memory is the mother of all wisdom.”

“Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.”

“To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.”

“[S]uch is the delight of mental superiority, that none on whom nature or study have conferred it, would purchase the gifts of fortune by its loss.”