Quotes by Johnson, Samuel

"Those who attain to any excellence commonly spend life in some single pursuit, for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms."

Johnson, Samuel on concentration   

"Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings."

Johnson, Samuel on confidence   

"There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity."

Johnson, Samuel on confidence
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"It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability."

Johnson, Samuel on confidence   

"The luster of diamonds is invigorated by the interposition of darker bodies; the lights of a picture are created by the shades; the highest pleasure which nature has indulged to sensitive perception is that of rest after fatigue."

Johnson, Samuel on contrast   

"The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered but a general effect of pleasing impression."

Johnson, Samuel on conversation   

"I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read."

Johnson, Samuel on conversation   

"No two men can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other."

Johnson, Samuel on cooperation   

"Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing."

Johnson, Samuel on courage   

"He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions."

Johnson, Samuel on courage   

"Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice."

Johnson, Samuel on courage   

"I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl; let him come out as I do, and bark."

Johnson, Samuel on war   

"There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?"

Johnson, Samuel on creation   

"Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic."

Johnson, Samuel on criticism   

"Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well."

Johnson, Samuel on criticism   

"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. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse."

Johnson, Samuel on criticism   

"Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind."

Johnson, Samuel on curiosity
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"Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last."

Johnson, Samuel on curiosity
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"You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company."

Johnson, Samuel on daughters   

"It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time."

Johnson, Samuel on death
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"I will be conquered; I will not capitulate."

Johnson, Samuel on death   

"Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully. "

Johnson, Samuel on uncategorised   

"It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclusions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the question, they expect to find their own opinion universally prevalent, and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge. "

Johnson, Samuel on uncategorised   

"Among the calamities of war, may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates, and credulity encourages. "

Johnson, Samuel on uncategorised   

"He who praises every body, praises nobody. "

Johnson, Samuel on uncategorised   

"The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity. The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope. "

Johnson, Samuel on uncategorised   

"A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately after his wife died: Johnson said, it was the triumph of hope over experience. "

Johnson, Samuel on uncategorised   

"ALMOST ALL ABSURDITY OF CONDUCT ARISES FROM THE IMITATION OF THOSE WHOM WE CANNOT RESEMBLE."

Johnson, Samuel on