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Samuel Johnson
363 quotes
“A jest breaks no bones.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1781 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (4 June 1781)
“I have two very cogent reasons for not printing any list of subscribers; — one, that I have lost all the names, — the other, that I have spent all the money.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1765 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1781) p. 477, Referring to subscribers to his edition of The Plays of William Shakespeare, with Notes (1765)
“Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1781 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: 1781, p. 479
“To let friendship die away by negligence and silence, is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary pilgrimage.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1782 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: March 20, 1782
“Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1782 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to James Boswell, December 7, 1782, p. 494
“A man may be so much of every thing, that he is nothing of any thing.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1783 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1783) p. 500
“There is a wicked inclination in most people to suppose an old man decayed in his intellects. If a young or middle-aged man, when leaving a company, does not remember where he laid his hat, it is nothing; but if the same inattention is discovered in an old man, people will shrug up their shoulders, and say, "His memory is going.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1783 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1783) p. 501
“A man might write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1783 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1783) p. 501
“Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1783 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: When asked by Maurice Morgann whom he considered to be the better poet — Smart or Derrick (1783) p. 504
“I never have sought the world; the world was not to seek me.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1783 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (23 March 1783)
“It is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, if they can have any thing else to amuse them.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1783 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1 May 1783) p. 513
“As I know more of mankind, I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man, upon easier terms than I was formerly.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1783 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1783) p. 519
“It might as well be said, "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1784 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In response to a line of a tragedy that went "Who rules o'er freemen should himself be free." (June 1784)
“It is as bad as bad can be: it is ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-drest.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1784 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Of roast mutton served to him at an inn (3 June 1784) p. 535
“Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1784 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In response to Hannah More wondering why Milton could write Paradise Lost but only poor sonnets. (13 June 1784) p. 542
“Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1784 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (June 1784) p. 526
“Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1784 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (June 1784) p. 545
“Sir, I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1784 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (November 1784) p. 566
“I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1784 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On his final illness (1784) p. 566
“God bless you, my dear!”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1784 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (13 December 1784, Last words)
“Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove The pangs of guilty power and hapless love! Rest here, distress'd by poverty no more; Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before; Sleep undisturb'd within this peaceful shrine, Till angels wake thee with a note like thine!”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) said by 1784 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched, And touched nothing that he did not adorn.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) said by 1784 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place consigned, Our own felicity we make or find. With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) said by 1784 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) said by 1784 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“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 (1709–1784) said by 1784 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) said by 1784 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A fellow that makes no figure in company, and has a mind as narrow as the neck of a vinegar-cruet.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1773 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Tour to the Hebrides (30 September 1773)
“The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honourable gentleman has with such spirit and decency charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1741 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Pitt's Reply to Walpole, Speech, March 6, 1741. This is the composition of Johnson, founded on some note or statement of the actual speech. Johnson said, "That speech I wrote in a garret, in Exeter Street." Boswell: Lif…
“Gloomy calm of idle vacancy.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1763 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Boswell (8 December 1763)
“Wretched un-idea'd girls.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1752 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1752)
“Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger at his death.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1754 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1754)
“I am glad that he thanks God for anything.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1755 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1755)
“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.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1763 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1763)
“Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1763 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1763)
“I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1763 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1763)
“This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1763 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1763)
“A very unclubable man.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1764 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1764)
“I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1769 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1769)
“I am a great friend to public amusements; for they keep people from vice.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1772 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1772)
“Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1772 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1772)
“Let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1773 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1773)
“Was ever poet so trusted before?”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1774 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1774)
“I never take a nap after dinner but when I have had a bad night; and then the nap takes me.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1775 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1775)
“In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1775 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1775)
“Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1776 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1776)
“Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1776 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1776)
“All this [wealth] excludes but one evil,—poverty.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1777 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1777)
“Employment, sir, and hardships prevent melancholy.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1777 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1777)
“He was so generally civil that nobody thanked him for it.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1777 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1777)
“Goldsmith, however, was a man who whatever he wrote, did it better than any other man could do.”
Samuel Johnson (1709–1784) first seen 1778 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1778)