Samuel Johnson Quotes - Page 5

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

An old friend never can be found and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.

The best part of every author is in general to be found in his book I assure you.

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.

You can never be wise unless you love reading.

As the faculty of writing has chiefly been a masculine endowment the reproach of making the world miserable has always been thrown upon the women.

People have now a-days, (said he,) got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do so much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken. I know nothing that can be best taught by lectures, except where experiments are to be shewn. You may teach chymistry by lectures.—You might teach making of shoes by lectures!

Read over your compositions and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine strike it out.

That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition no vanity but a calm quiet interchange of sentiments.

The joy of life is variety the tenderest love requires to be renewed by intervals of absence.

Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not because they are mistaken for realities, but because they bring realities to mind.

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of everything.

Friendship is a union of spirits a marriage of hearts and the bond there of virtue.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

Had I learned to fiddle I should have done nothing else.

The true genius is a mind of large general powers accidentally determined to some particular direction.