Quotes from work
The Idler

Samuel Johnson

“Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.”

Samuel Johnson The Idler

No. 58 (May 26, 1759)
The Idler (1758–1760)
Source: The Idler; Poems
Context: Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. The flowers which scatter their odours from time to time in the paths of life, grow up without culture from seeds scattered by chance. Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.

“The joy of life is variety; the tenderest love requires to be renewed by intervals of absence.”

Samuel Johnson The Idler

No. 39 (January 13, 1759)
The Idler (1758–1760)

“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)

“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)

“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)

“It is commonly observed, that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather; they are in haste to tell each other, what each must already know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm.”

Samuel Johnson The Idler

No. 11 (June 24, 1758)
The Idler (1758–1760)

“We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know, because they have never deceived us.”

Samuel Johnson The Idler

No. 80 (October 27, 1759)
The Idler (1758–1760)

“Merriment is always the effect of a sudden impression. The jest which is expected is already destroyed.”

Samuel Johnson The Idler

No. 58 (May 26, 1759)
The Idler (1758–1760)

“Slavery is now no where more patiently endured, than in countries once inhabited by the zealots of liberty.”

Samuel Johnson The Idler

No. 11 (June 24, 1758)
The Idler (1758–1760)

“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?”

Samuel Johnson The Idler

No. 70 (August 18, 1759)
The Idler (1758–1760)

“It is seldom that we find either men or places such as we expect them.”

Samuel Johnson The Idler

No. 58 (May 26, 1759)
The Idler (1758–1760)
Context: It is seldom that we find either men or places such as we expect them.... Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.

“Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.”

Samuel Johnson The Idler

No. 40 (January 20, 1759)
The Idler (1758–1760)
Context: Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused, and it is, therefore, become necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promises, and by eloquence sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetick. Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.