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Samuel Johnson on Anniversary

1709–1784 England

← All quotes by Samuel Johnson

13 quotes

A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.

The joy of life is variety; the tenderest love requires to be renewed by intervals of absence.

The Idler (1758)

I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.

Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)

A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately after his wife died: Johnson said, it was the triumph of hope over experience.

Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)

Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.

Marriages would in general be as happy, if not more so, if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor.

Alas! another instance of the triumph of hope over experience.

And panting Time toil'd after him in vain.

Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia (1759)

There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow; but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved.

Sir, it is so far from being natural for a man and a woman to live in a state of marriage, that we find all the motives that they have for remaining in that connection, and the restraints which civilized society imposes to prevent separation, are hardly sufficient to keep them together.

Being married to those sleepy-souled women is just like playing at cards for nothing: no passion is excited and the time is filled up. I do not, however, envy a fellow one of those honeysuckle wives for my part, as they are but creepers at best and commonly destroy the tree they so tenderly cling about.

Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.

Misattributed

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Samuel Johnson (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.