Civilized Quote by Samuel Johnson

“In civilized society we all depend upon each other, and our happiness is very much owing to the good opinion of mankind.”

Samuel Johnson

About This Quote

Human happiness depends heavily on mutual respect and positive social perception.

In simple terms: We thrive on others' good opinions.

Key Takeaway

Cultivate respectful relationships.

Themes

community happiness social interdependence

Mood

optimistic thoughtful

Type

sociological inspirational

When to use this quote

teamwork
public speaking
leadership
community building

Key Concepts

sociology ethics psychology

Questions to Reflect On

How do you nurture positive regard?
What happens when opinions clash?

A Different Perspective

Society also includes conflict and differing opinions.

★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 3.8 out of 5 (5 ratings)

Civilized Civilized society Depend Happiness Depends Happiness Happiness Owing Mankind Nature of man Opinion Opinion Mankind Owing Society Society Depend

More by Samuel Johnson

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

Samuel Johnson

Image

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…

Samuel Johnson

Image

You can never be wise unless you love reading.

Samuel Johnson

Image

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

Samuel Johnson

Image

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

Samuel Johnson

Image

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

Samuel Johnson

Image

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

Samuel Johnson

Image

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

Samuel Johnson

Image

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

Samuel Johnson

Image

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

Samuel Johnson

Image

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

Samuel Johnson

Image

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

Samuel Johnson

Image

Explore all 1,998 Samuel Johnson quotes

More Civilized quotes

That country [Carthage] was rapidly sinking into the state of barbarism from whence it had been raised by the Phoenician colonies and Roman laws;…

Edward Gibbon

Image

Be neither too early in the fashion, nor too long out of it, nor too precisely in it; what custom hath civilized is become…

Francis Quarles

Image

Wine is one of the most civilized things in the world and one of the most natural things of the world that has been…

Ernest Hemingway

Image

Civilized nations are ones that simply can't endure wrongs or injustice except at home

Joseph Anderson

Image

Our guiding principle was that design is neither an intellectual nor a material affair, but simply an integral part of the stuff of life,…

Walter Gropius

Image

War is not civilized.

Talib Kweli

Image

For it is an absurdity to call a country civilized in which a decent and industrious man, laboriously mastering a trade which is valuble…

H. L. Mencken

Image

No people is wholly civilized where a distinction is drawn between stealing an office and stealing a purse.

Theodore Roosevelt

Image

Mine was, as it were, the connecting link between wild and cultivated fields; as some states are civilized, and others half-civilized, and others savage…

Henry David Thoreau