“We frequently fall into error and folly, Dr. Johnson tells us, “not because the true principles of action are not known, but because, for a time, they are not remembered.” To compress, therefore, the great and obvious rules of life into brief sentences which are not easily forgotten is, as he said, to confer a real benefit upon us.”

“English Aphorists,” p. 108
Reperusals and Recollections (1936)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "We frequently fall into error and folly, Dr. Johnson tells us, “not because the true principles of action are not known…" by Logan Pearsall Smith?
Logan Pearsall Smith photo
Logan Pearsall Smith 37
British American-born writer 1865–1946

Related quotes

Mark Rothko photo
William Lane Craig photo
John Calvin photo

“Exactly because the past is forgotten, it rules unchallenged; to be transcended it must first be remembered.”

Russell Jacoby (1945) American historian

Source: Social Amnesia: A Critique of Conformist Psychology from Adler to Laing (1975), p. 5

William Lane Craig photo
Neil Gaiman photo

“Fairy tales are more than true: not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.”

Often misattributed to but inspired by GK Chesterton:
Fairy tales do not give the child his first idea of bogey. What fairy tales give the child is his first clear idea of the possible defeat of bogey. The baby has known the dragon intimately ever since he had an imagination. What the fairy tale provides for him is a St. George to kill the dragon.
Coraline (2002)

Frithjof Schuon photo
Cesar Chavez photo
Santiago Ramón y Cajal photo

Related topics