Quotessence
Home / Books / The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay

The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay

Book by Samuel Johnson · 25 quotes · Knows, May, Men

Filter quotes by topic

AllKnowsMayMenLastsMeanVirtueActiveConditionsEsteemEvilEyeFeelsFlowerFoundLawLooksMindNaturalProportionShould

The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay Quotes

“When a poet mentions the spring, we know that the zephyrs are about to whisper, that the groves are to recover their verdure, the linnets to warble forth their notes of love, and the flocks and herds to frisk over vales painted with flowers: yet, who is there so insensible of the beauties of nature, so little delighted with the renovation of the world, as not to feel his heart bound at the mention of the spring?”

KnowsWorldFeelsWritingHeartLittlesPoetFlowerSpringNotesBoundsDelightedHerdsFlocksNature BeautyGroveInsensibleRenovationZephyr
Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay
Create image

“In the condition of men, it frequently happens that grief and anxiety lie hid under the golden robes of prosperity; and the gloom of calamity is cheered by secret radiations of hope and comfort; as in the works of nature, the bog is sometimes covered with flowers, and the mine concealed in the barren crags.”

MenSometimesHappensLyingGriefSecretConditionsMinesFlowerComfortAnxietyProsperityAppearanceGoldenCoveredRadiationCalamityConcealedGloomBarrenRobesBogs
Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay
Create image

“Wisdom and virtue are by no means sufficient, without the supplemental laws of good-breeding, to secure freedom from degenerating into rudeness, or self esteem from swelling into insolence. A thousand incivilities may be committed, and a thousand offices neglected. without any remorse of conscience, or reproach from reason.”

MayMeanSelfReasonLawVirtueSelf EsteemThousandOfficeConscienceCommittedEsteemSecureSufficientRemorseNeglectedPolitenessBreedingReproachRudenessSwellingInsolenceGood BreedingIncivility
Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay
Create image

“In proportion as our cares are employed upon the future, they are abstracted from the present, from the only time which we can call our own, and of which, if we neglect the apparent duties to make provision against visionary attacks, we shall certainly counteract our own purpose.”

IfsCarePurposeDutyProportionNeglectAnticipationEmployedOnly TimeProvisionVisionaries
Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay
Create image

“It is natural for every man uninstructed to murmur at his condition, because, in the general infelicity of life, he feels his own miseries without knowing that they are common to all the rest of the species; and, therefore, though he will not be less sensible of pain by being told that others are equally tormented, he will at least be freed from the temptation of seeking, by perpetual changes, that ease which is no where to be found, and though his diseases still continue, he escapes the hazard of exasperating it by remedies.”

MenFeelsStillsPainHumanityFoundNaturalCommonKnowingConditionsDiseaseMiserySpeciesSeekingEvery ManTemptationEaseSensiblePerpetualRemedyHazards
Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay
Create image

“Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last; and perhaps always predominates in proportion to the strength of the contemplative faculties. He who easily comprehends all that is before him, and soon exhausts any single subject, is always eager for new inquiries; and in proportion as the intellectual eye takes in a wider prospect, it must be gratified with variety, by more rapid flights and bolder excursions.”

MindFirstsEyeLastsPassionSubjectsIntellectualCuriosityFlightVarietyGenerousProportionFacultyInquiryRapidsContemplativeExcursions
Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay
Create image

“No writer can be fully convicted of imitation except there is a concurrence of more resemblance than can be imagined to have happened by chance; as where the same ideas are conjoined without any natural series or necessary coherence, or where not only the thought but the words are copied.”

WritingIdeasNaturalChanceHappenedSeriesOriginalityImitationResemblanceCoherenceConcurrence
Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay
Create image

“Difference of thoughts will produce difference of language. He that thinks with more extent than another, will want words of a 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?”

ThinkingKnowsWantShouldLanguageTermDifferencesWonderNiceProduceOriginalsDiscriminationCopiesVocabulary
Book:The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay
Create image