Samuel Johnson Quotes
-
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.
-
The Churchyard abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo.
-
The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.
-
Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things.
-
'I fly from pleasure,' said the prince, 'because pleasure has ceased to please; I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others.'
-
The act of writing itself distracts the thoughts, and what is read twice is commonly better remembered than what is transcribed.
-
Nothing is little to him that feels it with great sensibility.
-
It is man's own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age.
-
Employment, sir, and hardships prevent melancholy.
-
A desire for knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being, whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all he has to get knowledge.
-
So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.
-
A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.
-
A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity.
-
I never have sought the world; the world was not to seek me.
-
Mrs. Montagu has dropt me. Now, Sir, there are people whom one should like very well to drop, but would not wish to be dropped by.
-
The endearing elegance of female friendship.
-
'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.
-
Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.
-
No man is much pleased with a companion, who does not increase, in some respect, his fondness for himself.
-
The true Genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.
-
Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.
-
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.
-
I refute it thus.
-
Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any high degree; only about as much as is used in the lower kinds of poetry.