B.S. Johnson Quotes

Occupation alone is happiness.

He that never labors may know the pains of idleness, but not the pleasures.

Let observation with extensive view, Survey mankind from China to Peru; Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife, And watch the busy scenes of crowded life.

The best part of every author is in general to be found in his book, I assure you.

In my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now.

Shakespeare never had six lines together without a fault. Perhaps you may find seven, but this does not refute my general assertion.

Was there ever yet anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?

The civilities of the great are never thrown away.

The expense is damnable, the position is ridiculous, and the pleasure fleeting.

It is not easy to surround life with any circumstances in which youth will not be delightful.

I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to he right.

Merriment is always the effect of a sudden impression. The jest which is expected is already destroyed.

The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.

I have two very cogent reasons for not printing any list of subscribers; one, that I have lost all the names, the other, that I have spent all the money.

Life admits not of delays; when pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it. Every hour takes away part of the things that please us, and perhaps part of our disposition to be pleased.

A country governed by a despot is an inverted cone.

A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian, Who left scarcely any style of writing untouched, And touched nothing that he did not adorn.

The richest author that ever grazed the common of literature.

New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new.

It is man's own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age.

Hunting was the labour of the savages of North America, but the amusement of the gentlemen of England.

Sir, if a man has a mind to prance, he must study at Christ Church and All Souls.

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

Nay, Sir, those who write in them, write well, in order to be paid well.

It is the condition of our present state to see more than we can attain; the exactest vigilance and caution can never maintain a single day of unmingled innocence.

It is much easier not to write like a man than to write like a woman.

I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love or desire of fame, but the want of money, which is the only motive to writing that I know of.

New arts are long in the world before poets describe them; for they borrow everything from their predecessors, and commonly derive very little from nature or from life.

It is indeed not easy to distinguish affectation from habit; he that has once studiously developed a style, rarely writes afterwards with complete ease.

There seems to be a strange affectation in authors of appearing to have done everything by chance.

Invention is almost the only literary labour which blindness cannot obstruct.

There are, indeed, few kinds of composition from which an author, however learned or ingenious, can hope a long continuance of fame.

Babies do not want to hear about babies; they like to be told of giants and castles.

Never speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate, and may be offensive .

To build is to be robbed.

A successful author is equally in danger of the diminution of his fame, whether he continues or ceases to write.

Of a thousand shavers, two do not shave so much alike as not to be distinguished.

There may be community of material possessions, but there can never be community of love or esteem.

Once a coxcomb, always a coxcomb.

Such is the emptiness of human enjoyment that we are always impatient of the present. Attainment is followed by neglect, and possession by disgust.

Though the discoveries or acquisitions of man are not always adequate to the expectations of his pride, they are at least sufficient to animate his industry.

It is wonderful what a difference learning makes upon people even in the common intercourse of life, which does not appear to be much connected with it.

I have adopted the Roman sentiment, that it is more honorable to save a citizen than to kill an enemy.

The relief of enemies has a tendency to unite mankind in fraternal affection.

As all error is meanness, it is incumbent on every man who consults his own dignity, to retract it as soon as he discovers it.

No man can have much kindness for him by whom he does not believe himself esteemed, and nothing so evidently proves esteem as imitation.

Such is the constitution of Man that labor may be said to be its own re-ward.

They who look but little into futurity, have, perhaps, the quickest sensation of the present.

Games are good or bad as to their nature; all may be perverted.

For gold the hireling judge distorts the laws.