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Psychology Quotes by Samuel Johnson

134 Psychology quotes by Samuel Johnson

All Psychology quotes Samuel Johnson’s page

A forest of ideas with oaks and weeds illustrates how the mind can hold both strong thoughts and tangled doubts. The quotes warn that confusing familiarity with true knowledge is a weak habit, and that timidity can be a stubborn mental illness. They also suggest training the mind to start promptly, clearing away “can’t”.

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My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.

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My dear friend, clear your mind of can't.

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Clear your mind of cant.

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Celestial wisdom calms the mind.

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A man's mind grows narrow in a narrow place.

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Never mind the use--do it!

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

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He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.

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Sir, if a man has a mind to prance, he must study at Christ Church and All Souls.

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There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.

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The truly strong and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.

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The fountain of contentment must spring up in the mind.

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Hope is an amusement rather than a good, and adapted to none but very tranquil minds.

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It is man's own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age.

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A merchant may, perhaps, be a man of an enlarged mind, but there is nothing in trade connected with an enlarged mind.

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There is not, perhaps, to a mind well instructed, a more painful occurrence, than the death of one we have injured without…

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Whatever professes to benefit by pleasing must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something sudden and unexpected; that which…

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There is nothing more fatal to a man whose business is to think than to have learned the art of regaling his…

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He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into the short sentences, that may be easily impressed…

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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,…

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Friendship, peculiar boon of Heaven, The noble mind's delight and pride, To men and angels only given, To all the lower world…

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No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to hope or fear beyond…

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“The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to…

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The love of retirement has in all ages adhered closely to those minds which have been most enlarged by knowledge, or elevated…

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The chief art of learning, as Locke has observed, is to attempt but little at a time. The widest excursions of the…

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It is, however, not necessary, that a man should forbear to write, till he has discovered some truth unknown before; he may…

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In a time of war the nation is always of one mind, eager to hear something good of themselves and ill of…

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The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing…

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Our minds, like our bodies, are in continual flux; something is hourly lost, and something acquired… Do not suffer life to stagnate;…

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The mental disease of the present generation is impatience of study, contempt of the great masters of ancient wisdom, and a disposition…

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Consultation and compliance can conduce little to the perfection of any literary performance; for whoever is so doubtful of his own abilities…

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Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent.…

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“My dear friend, clear your mind of cant [excessive thought]. You may talk as other people do: you may say to a…

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Among the innumerable mortifications which waylay human arrogance on every side may well be reckoned our ignorance of the most common objects…

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To expect that the intricacies of science will be pierced by a careless glance, or the eminences of fame ascended without labour,…

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When a friend is carried to his grave, we at once find excuses for every weakness, and palliation of every fault. We…

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To write is, indeed, no unpleasing employment, when one sentiment readily produces another, and both ideas and expressions present themselves at the…

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To see helpless infancy stretching out her hands, and pouring out her cries in testimony of dependence, without any powers to alarm…

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The mind is seldom quickened to very vigorous operations but by pain, or the dread of pain

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“There is no problem the mind of man can set that the mind of man cannot solve.”

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More by Samuel Johnson

The size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth.

Pound St. Paul's Church into atoms, and consider any single atom; it is to be sure, good for nothing; but put all these atoms…

You can never be wise unless you love reading.

If our aim is to praise, we should forget to criticize; if our aim is to criticize, we should remember to praise

All theory is against free will; all experience is for it.

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

It is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it…

The basis of all excellence is truth: he that professes love ought to feel its power.

Words are daughters of earth but ideas are sons of heaven.

“The composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelting…

“The cherubim were never intended as an object of worship, because they were only the appendices to another thing. But a thing is then…

Nobody has the right to put another under such a difficulty that he must either hurt the person by telling the truth or hurt…

That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own self-esteem

The time will come to every human being when it must be known how well he can bear to die.