“Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings. Far from me, and far from my friends be such frigid philosophy as may conduct us indifferent and unmoved over any ground which has been dignified by wisdom, bravery, or virtue. That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Ionia.”
“People may be taken in once, who imagine that an author is greater in private life than other men.”
Source: The Table Talk of Dr. Johnson: Comprising Opinions and Anecdotes of Life and Literature, Men, Manners, and Morals
“You despise a man for avarice; but you do not hate him.”
“The business of the biographer is often to pass slightly over those performances and incidents which produce vulgar greatness, to lead the thoughts into domestic privacies, and display the minute details of daily life, were exterior appendages are cast aside, and men excel each other only by prudence and virtue.”
Source: The Life and Writings of Samuel Johnson...
“The booksellers are generous liberal-minded men.”
Source: Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into North Wales
“There is such a difference between the pursuits of men in great cities that one part of the inhabitants lives to little other purpose than to wonder at the rest. Some have hopes and fears, wishes and aversions, which never enter into the thoughts of others, and inquiry is laboriously exerted to gain that which those who possess it are ready to throw away.”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.: D., with an Essay on His Life and Genius
“Commerce can never be at a stop while one man wants what another can supply; and credit will never be denied, while it is likely to be repaid with profit.”
Source: The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752
“No man can fall into contempt but those who deserve it.”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vols 11-13: Debates in Parliament
“Every man has some favorite topic of conversation, on which, by a feigned seriousness of attention, he may be drawn to expatiate without end.”
Source: The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752
“The whole power of cunning is privative; to say nothing, and to do nothing , is the utmost of its reach. Yet men, thus narrow by nature and mean by art, are sometimes able to rise by the miscarriages of bravery and the openness of integrity, and, watching failures and snatching opportunities, obtain advantages which belong to higher characters.”
Source: The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752
“No man is defeated without some resentment which will be continued with obstinacy while he believes himself in the right, and asserted with bitterness, if even to his own conscience he is detected in the wrong.”
“The desires of man increase with his acquisitions.”
Source: The beauties of Johnson: choice selections from his works
“As he that lives longest lives but a little while, every man may be certain that he has no time to waste. The duties of life are commensurate to its duration; and every day brings its task, which, if neglected, is doubled on the morrow.”
Source: The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752
“Before dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding; and those who are conscious of their inferiority have the modesty not to talk; when they have drunk wine, every man feels himself happy, and loses that modesty, and grows impudent and vociferous; but he is not improved; he is only not sensible of his defects.”
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
“Though the discoveries or acquisitions of man are not always adequate to the expectations of his pride, they are at least sufficient to animate his industry.”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson: The Rambler
“Dishonor waits on perfidy. A man should blush to think a falsehood; it is the crime of cowards.”
“No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction. A man is pleased that his wife is dressed as well as other people, and the wife is pleased that she is dressed.”
Source: The Table Talk of Dr. Johnson: Comprising Opinions and Anecdotes of Life and Literature, Men, Manners, and Morals
“You cannot give me an instance of any man who is permitted to lay out his own time contriving not to have tedious hours.”
Source: The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished
“As all error is meanness, it is incumbent on every man who consults his own dignity, to retract it as soon as he discovers it.”
Source: The Rambler: In Four Volumes..
“No man can have much kindness for him by whom he does not believe himself esteemed, and nothing so evidently proves esteem as imitation.”
Source: The Rambler
“Never believe extraordinary characters which you hear of people. Depend upon it, they are exaggerated. You do not see one man shoot a great deal higher than another.”
Source: The Sayings of Doctor Johnson
“Such is the constitution of Man that labor may be said to be its own re-ward.”
“Faction seldom leaves a man honest, however it might find him.”
Source: The Lives of the English Poets: With Critical Observations on Their Works and Lives of Sundry Eminent Persons
“A few men are sufficient to broach falsehoods, which are afterwards innocently diffused by successive relaters.”
Source: The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished
“Timidity is a disease of the mind, obstinate and fatal; for a man once persuaded that any impediment is insuperable has given it, with respect to himself, that strength and weight which it had not before.”
Source: The Rambler
“No man hates him at whom he can laugh.”
“A man, doubtful of his dinner, or trembling at a creditor, is not much disposed to abstracted meditation, or remote enquiries.”
“Before dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding.”
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson
“A man has no more right to say an uncivil thing than to act one; no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down.”
Source: The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished
“Sir, a man who cannot get to heaven in a green coat, will not find his way thither the sooner in a grey one.”
Source: Johnsoniana; or supplement to Boswell; being Anecdotes and sayings of Dr. Johnson, etc
“The man who feels himself ignorant should, at least, be modest.”
Source: The beauties of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: consisting of maxims and observations, moral, critical, and miscellaneous: to which are now added biographical anecdotes of the doctor, selected from the works of Mrs. Piozzi;--his Life, recently published by Mr. Boswell, and other authentic testimonies; also his will, and the sermon he wrote for the late Doctor Dodd
“It is a maxim that no man was ever enslaved by influence while he was fit to be free.”
“Irresolution and mutability are often the faults of men whose views are wide, and whose imagination is vigorous and excursive.”
Source: The Rambler. ...
“Many a man is mad in certain instances, and goes through life without having it perceived. For example, a madness has seized a person of supposing himself obliged literally to pray continually; had the madness turned the opposite way, and the person thought it a crime ever to pray, it might not improbably have continued unobserved.”
Source: The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished
“A man of sense and education should meet a suitable companion in a wife. It is a miserable thing when the conversation can only be such as whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted, and probably a dispute about that.”
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
“A married man has many cares, but a bachelor no pleasures.”
“Among many parallels which men of imagination have drawn between the natural and moral state of the world, it has been observed that happiness as well as virtue consists in mediocrity.”
Source: The Rambler
“Instead of rating the man by his performances, we rate too frequently the performances by the man.”
Source: The Rambler: In Four Volumes
“Piety is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying man. He that grows old without religions hopes, as he declines into imbecility, and feels pains and sorrows incessantly crowding upon him, falls into a gulf of bottomless misery, in which every reflection must plunge him deeper and deeper.”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D..: The Rambler
“If a man begins to read in the middle of a book, and feels an inclination to go on, let him not quit it to go to the beginning. He may perhaps not feel again the inclination.”
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
“No man reads a book of science from pure inclination. The books that we do read with pleasure are light compositions, which contain a quick succession of events.”
Source: The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished
“People seldom read a book which is given to them; and few are given. The way to spread a work is to sell it at a low price. No man will send to buy a thing that costs even sixpence without an intention to read it.”
Source: The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished
“It is in refinement and elegance that the civilized man differs from the savage.”
Source: The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished
“When a man feel the reprehension of a friend seconded by his own heart, he is easily heated into resentment.”
Source: The Rambler: In Four Volumes
“Men who could willingly resign the luxuries and sensual pleasures of a large fortune cannot consent to live without the grandeur and the homage.”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Journey to the Hebrides. Tales of the imagination. Prayers and sermons. Index
“Of riches it is not necessary to write the praise. Let it, however, be remembered that he who has money to spare has it always in his power to benefit others, and of such power a good man must always be desirous.”
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
“Books, says Lord Bacon, can never teach us the use of books; the student must learn by commerce with mankind to reduce his speculations to practice. No man should think so highly of himself as to think he can receive but little light from books; no one so meanly, as to believe he can discover nothing but what is to be learned from them.”
“There is no book so poor that it would not be a prodigy if wholly made by a single man.”
“Scarce any man becomes eminently disagreeable but by a departure from his real character, and an attempt at something for which nature or education has left him unqualified.”
Source: The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752
“As to the Christian religion, besides the strong evidence which we have for it, there is a balance in its favor from the number of great men who have been convinced of its truth after a serious consideration of the question. Grotius was an acute man, a lawyer, a man accustomed to examine evidence, and he was convinced. Grotius was not a recluse, but a man of the world, who certainly had no bias on the side of religion. Sir Isaac Newton set out an infidel, and came to be a very firm believer.”
Source: Boswell's Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour of the Hebrides, and Johnson's Diary of A Journey Into North Wales
