Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

Lexicographer, Essayist, Critic

Samuel Johnson was an 18th-century English writer and lexicographer, known for his influential work 'A Dictionary of the English Language' and his profound insights into human nature.

Men Writing Mind May Thinking Book
Born
September 18, 1709
Died
December 6, 1784
Quotes
1.7K
Rank
#555

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Samuel Johnson quotes (page 71 of 88)

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"Man is a transitory being, and his designs must partake of the imperfections of their author. To confer duration is not always in our power. We must snatch the present moment, and employ it well, without too much solicitude for the future, and content ourselves with reflecting that our part is performed. He that waits for an opportunity to do much at once, may breathe out his life in idle wishes, and regret, in the last hour, his useless intentions and barren zeal."

Regret Opportunity Men
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"They make a rout about universal liberty, without considering that all that is to be valued, or indeed can be enjoyed by individuals, is private liberty."

Liberty Individual Considering
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"It was his peculiar happiness that he scarcely ever found a stranger whom he did not leave a friend; but it must likewise be added, that he had not often a friend long without obliging him to become a stranger."

Long Peculiar Stranger
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"No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance."

Men Want Able
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"It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclusions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the question, they expect to find their own opinion universally prevalent, and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge."

Honesty Men Want
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"We all live upon the hope of pleasing somebody, and the pleasure of pleasing ought to be greatest, and at last always will be greatest, when our endeavours are exerted in consequence of our duty."

Pleasure Endeavor Duty
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"He who endeavors to please must appear pleased."

Endeavor Please
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"Friendship is seldom lasting but between equals, or where the superiority on one side is reduced by some equivalent advantage on the other."

Sides Advantage Lasting
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"Books have always a secret influence on the understanding; we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas; he that reads books of science, thogh without any fixed desire of improvement, will grow more knowing."

Book Knowledge Science
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"There is no kind of idleness by which we are so easily seduced as that which dignifies itself by the appearance of business."

Business Sloth Laziness
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"Those who are in the power of evil habits must conquer them as they can; and conquered they must be, or neither wisdom nor happiness can be attained: but those who are not yet subject to their influence may, by timely caution, preserve their freedom."

Evil May Influence
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""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.""

Happiness Lonely Loneliness
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"It is commonly supposed that the uniformity of a studious life affords no matter for narration: but the truth is, that of the most studious life a great part passes without study. An author partakes of the common condition of humanity; he is born and married like another man; he has hopes and fears, expectations and disappointments, griefs and joys, and friends and enemies, like a courtier or a statesman; nor can I conceive why his affairs shuld not excite curiosity as much as the whisper of a drawing-room, or the factions of a camp."

Disappointment Grief Drawing
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"He that compares what he has done with what he has left undone, will feel the effect which must always follow the comparison of imagination with reality; he will look with contempt on his own unimportance, and wonder to what purpose he came into the world; he will repine that he shall leave behind him no evidence of his having been, that he has added nothing to the system of life, but has glided from youth to age among the crowd, without any effort for distinction."

Reality Imagination Effort
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"The uniform necessities of human nature produce in a great measure uniformity of life, and for part of the day make one place like another; to dress and to undress, to eat and to sleep, are the same in London as in the country."

Country Sleep Humanity
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"The most useful truths are always universal, and unconnected with accidents and customs."

Humanity Universal Accidents
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"Men, however distinguished by external accidents or intrinsick qualities, have all the same wants, the same pains, and, as far as the senses are consulted, the same pleasures."

Pain Men Humanity
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"The power, indeed, of every individual is small, and the consequence of his endeavours imperceptible, in a general prospect of the world. Providence has given no man ability to do much, that something might be left for every man to do. The business of life is carried on by a general co-operation; in which the part of any single man can be no more distinguished, than the effect of a particular drop when the meadows are floated by a summer shower: yet every drop increases the inundation, and every hand adds to the happiness or misery of mankind."

Summer Men Hands
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