Samuel Johnson Quotations

Viewing quotes 1 to 20 (57 total)

A man will turn over half a library to make one book.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [Writing]

Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [Writing]

The two most engaging powers of an author are to make new things familiar and familiar things new.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [Writing]

This is my history; like all other histories, a narrative of misery.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [History]

The mind is seldom quickened to very vigorous operations but by pain, or the dread of pain. We do not disturb ourselves with the detection of fallacies which do us no harm.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [Random]

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [Poetry]

Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden exchange meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness had before concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with cruelty.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [Marriage]

There is no observation more frequently made by such as employ themselves in surveying the conduct of mankind, than that marriage, though the dictate of nature, and the institution of Providence, is yet very often the cause of misery, and that those who enter into that state can seldom forbear to express their repentance, and their envy of those whom either chance or caution hath withheld from it.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [Marriage]

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [Music]

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [Kindness]

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [Opportunity]

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [Silence]

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [Integrity]

The vicious count their years; virtuous, their acts.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [Helping]

No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [Reality]

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [Attitude]

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [Patriotism]

This is one of the disadvantages of wine: it makes a man mistake words for thought.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [Alcohol]

Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [Alcohol]

Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
	- Samuel Johnson	more quotations on [Happiness]

Viewing quotes 1 to 20 (57 total)

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