Samuel Johnson on Mother's Day
1709–1784 England
← All quotes by Samuel Johnson
8 quotes
Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.
The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1785)
I am glad that he thanks God for anything.
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)
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.
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.
/ You have by every kind of evidence, lost an excellent mother; and I hope you will not think me incapable of sharing your grief. I have a mother, now eight-two years of age, whom, therefore, I must soon lose, unless it please that she rather should mourn for me.
Patriotism is when love of your own people comes first; nationalism, when hate for people other than your own comes first.
Misattributed