Samuel Johnson Zitate (370 Zitate, seite 12)

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Samuel Johnson Berühmte Zitate

„Patriotismus ist die letzte Zuflucht des Halunken.“

Samuel Johnson London

"The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D." von James Boswell, Eintrag vom 7. April 1775. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1791. Band 1, S. 211
Original engl. "Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

„Freundschaften sind wie alte Dächer, man muss sie ständig reparieren, damit sie halten.“

Samuel Johnson

„Neugierde ist in grosszügigen Köpfen die erste Leidenschaft und die letzte.“

Samuel Johnson

„Die Hölle ist mit guten Vorsätzen gepflastert.“

Samuel Johnson

„Es gibt zwei Arten von Wissen. Wir wissen etwas selbst oder wir wissen, wo wir uns über etwas sachkundig machen können.“

Samuel Johnson

„Wenn wir sehen, wie die Menschen altern und nach gewisser Zeit einer nach dem anderen sterben, Jahrhundert für Jahrhundert, dann können wir nur lachen über das Elixier, das die Verlängerung des Lebens auf über tausend Jahre verspricht; mit gleichem Recht ist der Lexikograph zu verspotten, der ohne das Beispiel einer Nation anführen zu können, die ihre Wörter und Ausdrücke vor Veränderlichkeit bewahrte, sich einbildet, sein Wörterbuch könne seine Sprache einbalsamieren, vor Verfälschung schützen und Verfall, und der meint, es stehe in seiner Macht, irdische Natur zu ändern oder die Welt mit einem Schlag von Verrücktheit, Eitelkeit und Affektiertheit zu befreien.“

Samuel Johnson

„Eine Frau, die versucht zu predigen, ist wie ein Hund, der versucht, auf den Hinterbeinen zu laufen. Es klappt nicht gut, aber man ist überrascht, dass es überhaupt funktioniert.“

Samuel Johnson London

"The Life of Samuel Johnson, L.L.D." von James Boswell, Eintrag vom 31. Juli 1763. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1791. Band 1, S. 112
Original engl. "Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hind legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all."
Quelle: Übersetzung Wikiquote

„Wenn jemand Londons überdrüssig ist, ist er des Lebens überdrüssig; denn in London hat man alles, was das Leben bieten kann.“

Samuel Johnson London

"The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D." von James Boswell, Eintrag vom 20. September 1777. London: Hutchinson & Co., 1791. Band 2, S. 160
Original engl. "When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford."

Samuel Johnson: Zitate auf Englisch

“Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.”

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Samuel Johnson

Actually said by Thomas Cooper, a U.S. politician.
Misattributed

“No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.”

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Samuel Johnson

On Oliver Goldsmith1780
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

“I am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those they provoke.”

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Samuel Johnson

Letter to Hester Thrale (5 July 1783) http://books.google.com/books?id=8JuiYLGldcsC&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=%22samuel+johnson%22+few+attacks+ridicule+invective+noise+provoke&source=web&ots=HMST_SM18L&sig=xovCcC2lKiTX9V0p61QvIC_yHW0&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

“I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject.”

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Samuel Johnson

1769
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)

“A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity.”

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Samuel Johnson

1735
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

“There Poetry shall tune her sacred voice,
And wake from ignorance the Western World.”

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Samuel Johnson

The Tragedy of Irene (1749), Act IV, Sc. 1

“This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.”

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Samuel Johnson

1763
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)

“The true Genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.”

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Samuel Johnson

The Life of Cowley http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/lvwal10h.htm
Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)

“He was so generally civil that nobody thanked him for it.”

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Samuel Johnson

1777
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)

“Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound; great debts are like cannon, of loud noise but little danger.”

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Samuel Johnson

Letter http://books.google.com/books?id=yEA_AQAAMAAJ&q=%22small+debts+are+like+small+shot+they+are+rattling+on+every+side+and+can+scarcely+be+escaped+without+a+wound+great+debts+are+like+cannon+of+loud+noise+but+little+danger%22&pg=PA189#v=onepage to Joseph Simpson, circa 1759
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

“All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it.”

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Samuel Johnson

April 15, 1778, p. 393
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

“Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment.”

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Samuel Johnson

Prayers and Meditations, No. 1770 (1785)

“He that thinks with more extent than another will want words of larger meaning; he that thinks with more subtilty will seek for terms of more nice discrimination; and where is the wonder, since words are but the images of things, that he who never knew the original should not know the copies?
Yet vanity inclines us to find faults any where rather than in ourselves. He that reads and grows no wiser, seldom suspects his own deficiency; but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood?”

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Samuel Johnson The Idler

No. 70 (August 18, 1759)
The Idler (1758–1760)

“The student who would build his knowledge on solid foundations, and proceed by just degrees to the pinnacles of truth, is directed by the great philosopher of France to begin by doubting of his own existence. In like manner, whoever would complete any arduous and intricate enterprise, should, as soon as his imagination can cool after the first blaze of hope, place before his own eyes every possible embarrassment that may retard or defeat him. He should first question the probability of success, and then endeavour to remove the objections that he has raised.”

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Samuel Johnson The Rambler

No. 43 (14 August 1750)
The Rambler (1750–1752)

“My friend was of opinion that when a man of rank appeared in that character [as an author], he deserved to have his merit handsomely allowed.”

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Samuel Johnson

May 1781
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV

“Here closed in death th' attentive eyes
That saw the manners in the face.”

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Samuel Johnson

Epitaph on Hogarth (1786)

“Why, Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them.”

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Samuel Johnson

Feb. 15, 1766, p. 145
Said of Rousseau and Voltaire
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II

“Were it not for imagination, Sir, a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a Duchess.”

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Samuel Johnson

May 9, 1778, p. 409
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III

“He was a very good hater.”

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Samuel Johnson

Quelle: Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson (1786), p. 83

“Wretched un-idea'd girls.”

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Samuel Johnson

1752
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)

“I refute it thus.”

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Samuel Johnson

August 6, 1763, p. 134
Said as he kicked a stone, speaking of Berkeley's "ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter".
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I

“If you are tired of London, you are tired of life. ”

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Samuel Johnson

“I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.”

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Samuel Johnson buch A Dictionary of the English Language

Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.
Preface http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/preface.html
A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

“Enlarge my life with multitude of days!”

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Samuel Johnson

In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays:
Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know
That life protracted is protracted woe.
Quelle: Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), Line 255

“The change of religion in Scotland, eager and vehement as it was, raised an epidemical enthusiasm, compounded of sullen scrupulousness and warlike ferocity, which, in a people whom idleness resigned to their own thoughts, and who conversing only with each other, suffered no dilution of their zeal from the gradual influx of new opinions, was long transmitted in its full strength from the old to the young, but by trade and intercourse with England, is now visibly abating, and giving way too fast to their laxity of practice and indifference of opinion, in which men, not sufficiently instructed to find the middle point, too easily shelter themselves from rigour and constraint.”

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Samuel Johnson buch A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland

p. 8. https://books.google.com/books?id=-6JfAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA8
A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775)

“Of the proportion, which the product of any region bears to the people, an estimate is commonly made according to the pecuniary price of the necessities of life; which is never certain, because it supposes what is far from truth, that the value of money is always the same, and so measures an unknown quantity by an uncertain standard. It is competent enough when the markets of the same country, at different times, and those times not too distant, are to be compared; but of very little use for the purpose of making one nation acquainted with the state of another.”

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Samuel Johnson buch A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland

pp. 366-367. https://books.google.com/books?id=-6JfAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA366
A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775)

“Memory is the mother of all wisdom.”

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Samuel Johnson

“Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.”

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Samuel Johnson

“To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.”

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Samuel Johnson The Rambler

No. 68 (10 November 1750)
The Rambler (1750–1752)

“[S]uch is the delight of mental superiority, that none on whom nature or study have conferred it, would purchase the gifts of fortune by its loss.”

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Samuel Johnson

The Rambler, No. 150 (Sat 24 Aug 1751). http://www.yalejohnson.com/frontend/sda_viewer?n=106855 See also The Yale Book of Quotations, Samuel Johnson 3 (2006)