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Wisdom Quotes by Samuel Johnson

41 Wisdom quotes by Samuel Johnson

All Wisdom quotes Samuel Johnson’s page

Samuel Johnson links wisdom to reading, experience, and self‑control. He notes that theory can limit free will while lived experience supports it, and that criticism often lacks certainty. He also warns that evil habits must be conquered for true happiness.

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

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Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

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Fears of the brave and follies of the wise.

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He is no wise man who will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.

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Let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich.

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He that never thinks can never be wise.

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Celestial wisdom calms the mind.

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He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty

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Every man wishes to be wise, and they who cannot be wise are almost always cunning.

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Wise married women don't trouble themselves about infidelity in their husbands.

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To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.

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

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Though the wisdom or virtue of one can very rarely make many happy, the folly or vice of one man often make…

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From ignorance our comfort flows, the only wretched are the wise

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Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause awhile from letters, to be wise.

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In order that all men might be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

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It is scarcely credible to what degree discernment may be dazzled by the mist of pride, and wisdom infatuated by the intoxication…

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A contempt of the monuments and the wisdom of the past, may be justly reckoned one of the reigning follies of these…

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There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow, but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is…

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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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A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to…

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Those who are in the power of evil habits must conquer them as they can; and conquered they must be, or neither…

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To embarrass justice by multiplicity of laws, or to hazard it by confidence in judges, seem to be the opposite rocks on…

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Criticism, though dignified from the earliest ages by the labours of men eminent for knowledge and sagacity, has not yet attained the…

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To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has…

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Order is a lovely nymph, the child of Beauty and Wisdom; her attendants are Comfort, Neatness, and Activity; her abode is the…

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Wisdom and virtue are by no means sufficient, without the supplemental laws of good-breeding, to secure freedom from degenerating into rudeness, or…

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No wise man will go to live in the country, unless he has something to do which can be better done in…

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

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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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“Perhaps the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension…

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There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow.

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You can never be wise unless you love reading.

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Cunning differs from wisdom as twilight from open day.

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The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.

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He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.

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If what happens does not make us richer, we must welcome it if it makes us wiser.

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Beauty has often overpowered the resolutions of the firm, and the reasonings of the wise, roused the old to sensibility, and subdued…

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He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks…

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A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favor cannot…

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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.