15 Samuel Johnson Quotes on Learning

Samuel Johnson quotes on learning

3. Studious to please, yet not ashamed to fail.

27. I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

42. Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.

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

87. The world is not yet exhausted: let me see something to-morrow which I never saw before.

96. Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.

105. The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

114. A lady once asked him how he came to define Pastern the knee of a horse: instead of making an elaborate defence, as she expected, he at once answered, 'Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance.'

123. A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

125. I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, 'Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task.'

143. Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

144. There is now less flogging in our great schools than formerly, but then less is learned there; so that what the boys get at one end they lose at the other.

166. As the Spanish proverb says, 'He, who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.' So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

178. Greek, sir, is like lace; every man gets as much of it as he can.

189. A man may be so much of every thing, that he is nothing of any thing.