Samuel Johnson Quotes on Mind (33 Quotes)


    Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.

    There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.

    He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into the short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.

    No mind is much employed upon the present recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments.

    It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharge of any profession.


    To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which if not a virtue, is the groundwork of a virtue.

    There is nothing so much seduces reason from vigilance as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman in marriage.


    In a time of war the nation is always of one mind, eager to hear something good of themselves and ill of the enemy. At this time the task of news-writers is easy, they have nothing to do but to tell that a battle is expected. . .

    Language is the dress of thought every time you talk your mind is on parade.

    Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success for it supplies as many images to the mind, and as many topics to the tongue.

    This man Chesterfield, I thought, had been a Lord among wits but I find he is only a wit among Lords.

    The mind is refrigerated by interruption the thoughts are diverted from the principle subject the reader is weary, he suspects not why and at last throws away the book, which he has too diligently studied.

    One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

    Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.

    The chief art of learning, as Locke has observed, is to attempt but little at a time. The widest excursions of the mind are made by short flights frequently repeated. . .

    Great abilites are not requisite for an Historian for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any degree...

    Do not hope wholly to reason away your troubles do not feed them with attention, and they will die imperceptibly away. Fix your thoughts upon your business, fill your intervals with company, and sunshine will again break in upon your mind.

    The whole of life is but keeping away the thoughts of death.

    Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.

    There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer Why do you and I exist Why was this world created Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner.

    The two great movers of the human mind are the desire for good, and the fear of evil.

    The true, strong and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.

    The mind is seldom quickened to very vigorous operations but by pain, or the dread of pain. We do not disturb ourselves with the detection of fallacies which do us no harm.

    It would add much to human happiness, if an art could be taught of forgetting all of which the remembrance is at once useless and afflictive, that the mind might perform its function without encumbrance, and the past might no longer encroach upon the

    As the mind must govern the hands, so in every society the man of intelligence must direct the man of labor.

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

    The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity... The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

    To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.

    It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honour. . .

    When any anxiety or gloom of the mind takes hold of you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaining but exert yourselves to hide it, and by endeavoring to hide it you drive it away.

    When any fit of anxiety or gloominess or perversion of the mind lays hold upon you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaints but exert your whole care to hide it. By endeavoring to hide it, you will drive it away.

    To the strongest and quickest mind, it is far easier to learn than to invent.


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