Quotessence
Home / Authors / Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson Quotes

Writer

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenMayMindWritingIfsPleasureShouldLittlesWorldThinkingHumansKnowsVirtueFirstsBookEvery ManDesireHappinessReasonWish

Famous Samuel Johnson Quotes

“You think I love flattery (says Dr. Johnson), and so I do; but a little too much always disgusts me: that fellow Richardson, on the contrary, could not be contented to sail quietly down the stream of reputation, without longing to taste the froth from every stroke of the oar.”

ThinkingLittlesToo MuchTasteFellowsLongingContraryReputationStreamsDisgustingSailDrsStrokesFlatteryJohnsonOarDr Johnson
Book: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
Create image

“Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial, and rather political than religious.”

ThinkingChristianPoliticalReligionDifferencesReligiousEssentialsAgreeAgreementArticlesProtestantsReligious Differences
Book:Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into North Wales
Create image

“Most men think indistinctly, and therefore cannot speak with exactness . . .”

ThinkingMenSpeakExactness
Book:Dictionnary of the English Language with Numerous Corrections and with the Addition of Several Thousand Works and Also with Addition to the History of the Language and to the Grammar by H.J. Todd
Create image

“What a strange narrowness of mind now is that, to think the things we have not known are better than the things we have known.”

ThinkingMindKnownStrangeWise Words
Book: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
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

“The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.”

ThinkingArtIdeasSometimesTogetherReadingViolenceReaderSurpriseImprovementAdmireComparisonMetaphysicsSubtletyIllustrationAllusionNature And Art
Book:Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings
Create image

“There is no being so poor and so contemptible, who does not think there is somebody still poorer, and still more contemptible.”

ThinkingDoeStillsPoorContempt
Book: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
Create image