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All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.
Topic: Novelty
Source: None
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Yet still he fills affection's eye,
Obscurely wise, and coarsely kind.
Topic: Obscurity
Source: Verses on the On the Death of Mr. Robert Levet
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And sure the Eternal Master found
The single talent well employ'd.
Topic: Occupations
Source: Verses on the On the Death of Mr. Robert Levet (st. 7)
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The habit of looking on the bright side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.
Topic: Optimism
Source: None
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He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
Topic: Pain
Source: None
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For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill.
Topic: Patience
Source: The Vanity of Human Wishes (l. 352)
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Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Topic: Patriotism
Source: Boswell's Life of Johnson
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That man is little to be envied, whose patriotism would not gain
force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow
warmer among the runs of Iona.
Topic: Patriotism
Source: A Journey to the Western Islands--Inch Kenneth
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It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.
Topic: Perfection
Source: None
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Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.
Topic: Perspective
Source: None
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In misery's darkest caverns known,
His useful care was ever nigh,
Where hopeless Anguish pour'd his groan,
And lonely want retir'd to die.
Topic: Philanthropy
Source: Verses on the On the Death of Mr. Robert Levet (st. 5), in Boswell's "Life of Johnson" (1782)
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A wicked fellow is the most pious when he takes to it. He'll beat you all at piety.
Topic: Piety
Source: None
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Pity is not natural to man. Children and savages are always cruel. Pity is acquired and improved by the cultivation of reason. We may have uneasy sensations from seeing a creature in distress, without pity; but we have not pity unless we wish to relieve him.
Topic: Pity
Source: None
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I fly from pleasure, because pleasure has ceased to please: I am
lonely because I am miserable.
Topic: Pleasure
Source: Rasselas (ch. III)
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Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.
Topic: Poetry
Source: None
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He who praises everybody, praises nobody.
Topic: Praise
Source: None
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The future is purchased by the present.
Topic: Present
Source: None
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Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.
Topic: Pride
Source: None
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Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.
Topic: Pride
Source: None
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Of all the griefs that harass the distress'd,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest;
Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart,
Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: London (l. 165)
|
He threatens many that hath injured one.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: London (l. 165)
|
I from the jaws of a gardener's bitch
Snatched this bone and then leapt the ditch.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: London (l. 165)
|
Let them call it mischief;
Then it is past and prosper'd, 'twill be virtue.
Topic: Proverbs
Source: London (l. 165)
|
The first years of man must make provision for the last.
Topic: Prudence
Source: Rasselas (ch. XVII)
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Prudence is an attitude that keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy.
Topic: Prudence
Source: None
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He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.
Topic: Quotes
Source: None
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Books have always a secret influence on the understanding; we
cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas: he that reads books of
science, though without any desire fixed of improvement, will
grow more knowing; he that entertains himself with moral or
religious treatises, will imperceptibly advance in goodness; the
ideas which are often offered to the mind, will at last find a
lucky moment when it is disposed to receive them.
Topic: Reading
Source: The Adventurer (no. 137)
|
A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he
reads as a task will do him little good.
Topic: Reading
Source: Boswell's Life of Johnson
|
What is twice read is commonly better remembered that what is
transcribed.
Topic: Reading
Source: The Idler (no. 74)
|
Don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drive into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.
Topic: Retirement
Source: None
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Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.
Topic: Revenge
Source: None
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Some people wave their dogmatic thinking until their own reason is entangled.
Topic: Rhetoric
Source: None
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The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary
commonwealth.
Topic: Royalty
Source: Life of Milton
|
The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high-road
that leads him to England.
Topic: Scotland
Source: Boswell's Life of Johnson (vol. II, ch. V)
|
To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.
Topic: Secrecy
Source: None
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Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off.
Topic: Secrecy
Source: None
|
To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.
Topic: Secrets
Source: None
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The stream of Time, which is continually washing the dissoluble
fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of
Shakespeare.
Topic: Shakespeare
Source: Preface to Works of Shakspere
|
Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being
drowned.
Topic: Ships
Source: Boswell's Life of Johnson
|
Slander is the revenge of a coward, and dissimulation of his defense.
Topic: Slander
Source: None
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I live in the crowds of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as
to shun myself.
Topic: Society
Source: Rasselas (ch. XVI)
|
Round numbers are always false.
Topic: Statistics
Source: None
|
He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dulness in others.
Topic: Stupidity
Source: Boswell's Life of Johnson
|
Why, sir, Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken
him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an
excess of stupidity, Sir, is not in Nature.
Topic: Stupidity
Source: Boswell's Life of Johnson, of R.B. Sheridan
|
He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly become corrupt.
Topic: Suspicion
Source: None
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Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.
Topic: Temperance
Source: in Hannah More's "Johnsoniana", 467
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I am glad that he thanks God for anything.
Topic: Thankfulness
Source: Boswell's Life of Johnson
|
Remarriage: A triumph of hope over experience.
Topic: The sexes
Source: None
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Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.
Topic: Theory
Source: None
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Conjecture as to things useful, is good; but conjecture as to what it would be useless to know, is very idle.
Topic: Theory
Source: None
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