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Samuel Johnson Quotes (1709-1784)
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About Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 7 September O.S.
Best Samuel Johnson Quotes
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Explore our curated collection of the most famous and impactful Samuel Johnson quotes.
“A very unclubable man.”
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“Declamation roared, while Passion slept.”
“Towering is the confidence of twenty-one.”
“Superfluous lags the vet'ran on the stage.”
“I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.”
“For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill.”
“The endearing elegance of female friendship.”
“In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.”
Samuel Johnson Quotes by Topic
Find exactly what you are looking for by browsing this categorized list of Samuel Johnson quotes by topic.
Samuel Johnson on Life 7 quotes
View all 7 quotes on Life →Samuel Johnson on Authors 6 quotes
View all 6 quotes on Authors →Samuel Johnson on Knowledge 5 quotes
“Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanicks laughs at strength.”
Samuel Johnson on Poetry 5 quotes
“Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason.”
Samuel Johnson on Travel 5 quotes
“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 on Friendship 4 quotes
“The endearing elegance of female friendship.”
Samuel Johnson on London 4 quotes
View all 4 quotes on London →Samuel Johnson on Mind 4 quotes
“The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.”
Samuel Johnson on Patriotism 3 quotes
“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”
What Samuel Johnson Said About Others
Discover personal opinions Samuel Johnson shared regarding contemporaries.
Samuel Johnson on Joseph Addison 5 quotes
“That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?”
Samuel Johnson on John Dryden 5 quotes
“Dryden may be properly considered as the father of English criticism, as the writer who first taught us to determine upon principles the merit of composition.”
Samuel Johnson on Women 4 quotes
View all 4 quotes on Women →Samuel Johnson on William Shakespeare 4 quotes
“The stream of Time, which is continually washing the dissoluble fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of Shakspere.”
Samuel Johnson on Wives 3 quotes
“Alas! another instance of the triumph of hope over experience.”
Samuel Johnson on James Macpherson 3 quotes
“Sir, a man might write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it.”
Samuel Johnson on Jonathan Swift 2 quotes
View all 2 quotes on Jonathan Swift →Samuel Johnson on John Milton 2 quotes
“An acrimonious and surly republican.”
Samuel Johnson on David Garrick 2 quotes
“His profession made him rich and he made his profession respectable.”
Samuel Johnson on Thomas Gray 2 quotes
“Gray thought his language more poetical as it was more remote from common use.”
Samuel Johnson on George III of the United Kingdom 2 quotes
“Sir, they may talk of the King as they will; but he is the finest gentleman I have ever seen.”
Samuel Johnson on Bernard Mandeville 2 quotes
“I read Mandeville forty, or, I believe, fifty years ago. He did not puzzle me; he opened my views into real life very much.”
Quotes About Samuel Johnson
Gain deeper perspective through quotes about Samuel Johnson from others.
H. D. Best on Samuel Johnson
“Mrs. Digby told me that when she lived in London with her sister, Mrs. Brooke, they were every now and then honoured by the visits of Dr. Johnson. He called on them one day soon after the publication of his immortal dictionary. The two ladies paid him due compliments on the occasion. Amongst other topics of praise they very much commended the omission of all naughty words. 'What! my dears! then you have been looking for them?' said the moralist. The ladies, confused at being thus caught, dropped the subject of the dictionary.”
Harold Bloom on Samuel Johnson
James Boswell on Samuel Johnson
“I never knew any man who relished good eating more than he did. When at table, he was totally absorbed in the business of the moment; his looks seemed riveted to his plate; nor would he, unless when in very high company, say one word, or even pay the least attention to what was said by others, till he had satisfied his appetite; which was so fierce, and indulged with such intenseness, that while in the act of eating, the veins of his forehead swelled, and generally a strong perspiration was visible. To those whose sensations were delicate, this could not but be disgusting; and it was doubtless not very suitable to the character of a philosopher, who should be distinguished by self-command.”
Fanny Burney [Mme D'Arblay] on Samuel Johnson
“Indeed, the freedom with which Dr. Johnson condemns whatever he disapproves of is astonishing.”
J. C. D. Clark on Samuel Johnson
“Johnson...was not merely a learned classicist among other classicists; he was the last great English man of letters able to write Latin verse to a high standard of technical and literary excellence, the last whose cultural inheritance was more a classical than a vernacular literature. His stature as a writer and a scholar of the Latin language had profound implications for his writings in English and for their social purpose.”
Eugene V. Debs on Samuel Johnson
“These are the gentry who are today wrapped up in the American flag, who shout their claim from the housetops that they are the only patriots, and who have their magnifying glasses in hand, scanning the country for evidence of disloyalty, eager to apply the brand of treason to the men who dare to even whisper their opposition to Junker rule in the United States. No wonder Sam Johnson declared that "patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel." He must have had this Wall Street gentry in mind, or at least their prototypes, for in every age it has been the tyrant, the oppressor and the exploiter who has wrapped himself in the cloak of patriotism, or religion, or both to deceive and overawe the people.”
Lord Eldon on Samuel Johnson
“When, by the kindness of Sir R. Chambers, I lived in the house belonging to him as Principal at New Inn Hall at Oxford, and was his deputy reading his Vinerian lectures, he, Dr. Johnson, Sir Joshua Reynolds, and, as well as I can remember, one or two other persons came from London to Oxford. Walking in the garden at New Inn Hall, Sir R. Chambers threw some snails over his garden wall. "Sir," said Johnson, "what you are doing is very unmannerly to your neighbour." Sir Robert said, jocosely, "Why, Dr., he is not a Churchman," or "he is a Dissenter"—I cannot at this distance of time be quite positive as to the words. "Oh," says the Doctor, laughing, "why then, throw away as hard as you can."”
Emma Goldman on Samuel Johnson
“"Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of scoundrels," said Dr. Samuel Johnson. Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our time, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment in the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the honest workingman.”
James Mackintosh on Samuel Johnson 2 quotes
“He was distinguished by vigorous understanding and inflexible integrity... He was conscientious, sincere, determined; and his pride was no more than a steady consciousness of superiority in the most valuable qualities of human nature; his friendships were not only firm, but generous, and tender beneath a rugged exterior; he wounded none of those feelings which the habits of his life enabled him to estimate; but he had become too hardened by serious distress not to contract some disregard for those minor delicacies, which become so keenly susceptible in a calm and prosperous fortune. He was a Tory, not without some propensities towards Jacobitism, and a high Churchman, with more attachment to ecclesiastical authority and a splendid worship than is quite consistent with the spirit of Protestantism.”
Harold Nicolson on Samuel Johnson
“Dr Johnson is the only conversationalist who triumphs over time.”
Daniel O'Connell on Samuel Johnson 2 quotes
“He [James Boswell] says that he differed with Dr. Johnson on the right of the British Parliament to tax the colonies. The affirmative was argued with vehemence by the Doctor in some pamphlets. Dr. Johnson said if he was a country gentleman he would punish any tenant of his who voted for any but the candidate of his master's choice. Johnson hated the name of a Whig. He complained that our Government was too weak; that the King had too little power!”
Misattributed Quotes
Quotes mistakenly credited to Samuel Johnson
“Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.”
“The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things — the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.”
“Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.”
“Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.”
About Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 7 September O.S.