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Samuel Johnson QUOTES

1 " It is necessary to hope... for hope itself is happiness. "

― Samuel Johnson

2 " I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am. "

― Samuel Johnson

3 " In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it. "

― Samuel Johnson , The Rambler

4 " Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth. "

― Samuel Johnson , Johnson's Life Of Milton: With Introduction And Notes (1894)

5 " Whoever thou art that, not content with a moderate condition, imaginest happiness in royal magnificence, and dreamest that command or riches can feed the appetite of novelty with perpetual gratifications, survey the Pyramids, and confess thy folly! "

― Samuel Johnson

6 " Perhaps the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in a few words.
We frequently fall into error and folly, not because the true principles of action are not known, but because, for a time, they are not remembered; and he may therefore be justly numbered among the benefactors of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to recur habitually to the mind. "

― Samuel Johnson

7 " He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood. "

― Samuel Johnson ,

8 " It has been observed in all ages that the advantages of nature or of fortune have contributed very little to the promotion of happiness; and that those whom the splendour of their rank, or the extent of their capacity, have placed upon the summits of human life, have not often given any just occasion to envy in those who look up to them from a lower station; whether it be that apparent superiority incites great designs, and great designs are naturally liable to fatal miscarriages; or that the general lot of mankind is misery, and the misfortunes of those whose eminence drew upon them an universal attention, have been more carefully recorded, because they were more generally observed, and have in reality only been more conspicuous than others, not more frequent, or more severe. "

― Samuel Johnson ,

9 " That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner. "

― Samuel Johnson

10 " A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it. "

― Samuel Johnson , Works of Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson QUOTES

11 " I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. "

― Samuel Johnson

12 " The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it. "

― Samuel Johnson

13 " While an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance, and when he is dead we rate them by his best. "

― Samuel Johnson

14 " To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example. "

― Samuel Johnson

15 " Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. "

― Samuel Johnson , The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

16 " Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it. "

― Samuel Johnson

17 " There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable that I would not rather know it than not know it. "

― Samuel Johnson

18 " Ignorance, when voluntary, is criminal, and a man may be properly charged with that evil which he neglected or refused to learn how to prevent. "

― Samuel Johnson , The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia

19 " Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life . . . the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use. "

― Samuel Johnson

20 " My congratulations to you, sir. Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good. "

― Samuel Johnson