Quotes

Quotes - Johnson


Hell is paved with good intentions.

Samuel Johnson

Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

Samuel Johnson

I never take a nap after dinner but when I have had a bad night; and then the nap takes me.

Samuel Johnson

In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.

Samuel Johnson

There is now less flogging in our great schools than formerly,--but then less is learned there; so that what the boys get at one end they lose at the other.

Samuel Johnson

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

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

Samuel Johnson

Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.

Samuel Johnson

A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.

Samuel Johnson

All this [wealth] excludes but one evil,--poverty.

Samuel Johnson

Employment, sir, and hardships prevent melancholy.

Samuel Johnson

When a man is tired of London he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

Samuel Johnson

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

Samuel Johnson

Goldsmith, however, was a man who whatever he wrote, did it better than any other man could do.

Samuel Johnson

Johnson said that he could repeat a complete chapter of "The Natural History of Iceland" from the Danish of Horrebow, the whole of which was exactly thus: "There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole island." [Chap. lxxii.]

Samuel Johnson

As the Spanish proverb says, "He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him," so it is in travelling,--a man must carry knowledge with him if he would bring home knowledge.

Samuel Johnson

The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.

Samuel Johnson

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

Claret is the liquor for boys, port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.

Samuel Johnson

A Frenchman must be always talking, whether he knows anything of the matter or not; an Englishman is content to say nothing when he has nothing to say.

Samuel Johnson

Of Dr. Goldsmith he said, "No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had."

Samuel Johnson

The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.

Samuel Johnson

The potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

Samuel Johnson

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

Samuel Johnson

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

Samuel Johnson

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