Thinking Quotes by Samuel Johnson

Some people wave their dogmatic thinking until their own reason is entangled.

— Samuel Johnson

He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.

— Samuel Johnson

Attack is the reaction. I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds.

— Samuel Johnson

People in distress never think that you feel enough.

— Samuel Johnson

Most men think indistinctly, and therefore cannot speak with exactness . . .

— Samuel Johnson

He that thinks he can afford to be negligent is not far from being poor.

— Samuel Johnson

He that never thinks can never be wise.

— Samuel Johnson

No man can enjoy happiness without thinking that he enjoys it.

— Samuel Johnson

The longer we live the more we think and the higher the value we put on friendship and tenderness towards parents and…

— Samuel Johnson

Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our houses let…

— Samuel Johnson

I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian.

— Samuel Johnson

The wise man applauds he who he thinks most virtuous; the rest of the world applauds the wealthy.

— Samuel Johnson

If one was to think constantly of death, the business of life would stand still

— Samuel Johnson

To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire and answer inquiries, is the business of…

— Samuel Johnson

It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in…

— Samuel Johnson

No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the…

— Samuel Johnson

You need a good editor because every writer thinks he can write a War and Peace, but by the time he gets…

— Samuel Johnson

You think I love flattery (says Dr. Johnson), and so I do; but a little too much always disgusts me: that fellow…

— Samuel Johnson

The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs,…

— Samuel Johnson

Very few live by choice. Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight, and with…

— Samuel Johnson

How gloomy would be the mansions of the dead to him who did not know that he should never die: that what…

— Samuel Johnson

Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present,…

— Samuel Johnson

Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present,…

— Samuel Johnson

Such is the state of every age, every sex, and every condition: all have their cares, either from nature or from folly;…

— Samuel Johnson

Many causes may vitiate a writer's judgement of his own works. On that which has cost him much labour he sets a…

— Samuel Johnson

We took tea, by Boswell's desire; and I eat one bun, I think, that I might not be seen to fast ostentatiously.…

— Samuel Johnson

The rules that I shall propose concerning secrecy, and from which I think it not safe to deviate without long and exact…

— Samuel Johnson

Difference of thoughts will produce difference of language. He that thinks with more extent than another, will want words of a larger…

— Samuel Johnson

The greatest human virtue bears no proportion to human vanity. We always think ourselves better than we are, and are generally desirous…

— Samuel Johnson

Whosoever shall look heedfully upon those who are eminent for their riches will not think their condition such as that he should…

— Samuel Johnson

I should as soon think of contradicting a bishop

— Samuel Johnson

The man who is asked by an author what he thinks of his work is put to the torture and is not…

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

There is no being so poor and so contemptible, who does not think there is somebody still poorer, and still more contemptible.

— Samuel Johnson

The habit of looking on the bright side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.

— Samuel Johnson

As a madman is apt to think himself grown suddenly great, so he that grows suddenly great is apt to borrow a…

— Samuel Johnson

Dishonor waits on perfidy. A man should blush to think a falsehood; it is the crime of cowards.

— Samuel Johnson

About things on which the public thinks long it commonly attains to think right.

— Samuel Johnson