Moral sentences appear ostentatious and tumid, when they have no great…

Samuel Johnson
884 citations
Moral sentences appear ostentatious and tumid, when they have no greater occasions than the journey of a wit to his home town: yet such pleasures and such pains make up the general mass of life; and as nothing is little to him that feels it with gre ✨ James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1799). Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into North Wales, p.429
Life Sadness
9

More Author Quotes

It is so far from being natural for a man and woman to live in a state of marriage, that we find all the motives which they have for remaining in that connection, and the restraints which civilised s … ▶
You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not - silence is the sharper sword.
Solitude is dangerous to reason, without being favourable to virtue. Remember that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad. ✨ Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson, … ▶
All envy would be extinguished, if it were universally known that there are none to be envied. ✨ Samuel Johnson, Arthur Murphy (1825). The Works of Samuel Johnson..., p.73
Falsehoods of convenience or vanity, falsehoods from which no evil immediately visible ensues, except the general degradation of human testimony, are very lightly uttered, and once uttered are sullen … ▶

More Author Quotes

Most Cited Authors

The Best Quotes

Most Liked Authors

Curated Author Quotes