“Patriotism having become one of our topicks, Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone, an apophthegm, at which many will start: “Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.” But let it be considered that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak of self-interest.”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Hypocrisy
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“I [Boswell] … insisted that admiration was more pleasing than judgment, as love is more pleasing than friendship. The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love like being enlivened with champagne. JOHNSON. “No, Sir; admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne; judgment and friendship like being enlivened.”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Prejudice
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“I told him that Goldsmith had said,… “As I take my shoes from the shoemaker, and my coat from the taylor, so I take my religion from the priest.” I regretted this loose way of talking. JOHNSON. Sir, he knows nothing; he has made up his mind about nothing.”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Religion
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“I will take no more physick, not even my opiates; for I have prayed that I may render up my soul to God unclouded.”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Religion
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“As the Spanish proverb says, “He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.” So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Traveling
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“He that travels in theory has no inconveniences; he has shade and sunshine at his disposal, and wherever he alights finds tables of plenty and looks of gaiety. These ideas are indulged till the day of departure arrives, the chaise is called, and the progress of happiness begins. A few miles teach him the fallacies of imagination. The road is dusty, the air is sultry, the horses are sluggish, and the postilion brutal. He longs for the time of dinner that he may eat and rest. The inn is crowded, his orders are neglected, and nothing remains but that he devour in haste what the cook has spoiled, and drive on in quest of better entertainment. He finds at night a more commodious house, but the best is always worse than he expected.”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Traveling
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“If you were to read Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself. But you must read him for the sentiment.”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Literature
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“Sir, there is more knowledge in a letter of Richardson’s, than in all Tom Jones.”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Literature
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“Fielding being mentioned, Johnson exclaimed, “he was a blockhead ….” BOSWELL. “Will you not allow, Sir, that he draws very natural pictures of human life?” JOHNSON. “Why, Sir, it is of very low life. Richardson used to say, that had he not known who Fielding was, he should have believed he was an ostler.”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Literature
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“Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last.”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Literature
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“As we walked along the Strand to-night, arm in arm, a woman of the town accosted us, in the usual enticing manner. “No, no, my girl, (said Johnson) it won’t do.”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Sex
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“I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Government
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“Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success; for it supplies as many images to the mind, and asmany topics to the tongue.”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Disappointment
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“his bow-wow way”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Character
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“The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Imagination
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“Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Success
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“Getting money is not all a man’s business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Business
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“It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Beauty
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“Hume, and other sceptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify themselves at any expense. Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken themselves to errour. Truth, sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Truth
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“I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him. You have no business with consequences; you are totell the truth.”
Samuel Johnson
Submitted by Quonation |Category: Truth
