Quotes on Advice
The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page
Home | Topical Guide | Search the Site

 
 

504. Advice; Criticism; Vanity
"Censure is willingly indulged, because it always implies some superiority: men please themselves with imagining that they have made a deeper search, or wider survey than others, and detected faults and follies which escape vulgar observation."
Johnson: Rambler #2 (March 24, 1750)
Link


602. Advice; Friendship; Honesty
"It is decreed by Providence, that nothing truly valuable shall be obtained in our present state, but with difficulty and danger. He that hopes for that advantage which is to be gained from unrestrained communication must sometimes hazard, by unpleasing truths, that friendship which he aspires to merit. The chief rule to observed in the exercise of this dangerous office, is to preserve it pure from all mixture of interest or vanity; to forbear admonition or reproof, when our consciences tell us that they are incited, not by the hopes of reforming faults, but the desire of showing our discrenment, or gratifying our pride by the mortification of another."
Johnson: Rambler #40 (August 4, 1750)
Link


603. Advice; Friendship; Honesty
"It is not indeed certain, that the most refined caution will find a proper time for bringing a man to the knowledge of his own failing, or the most zealous benevolence reconcile him to that judgment by which they are detected; but he who endeavours only the happiness of him whom he reproves will always have either the satisfaction of obtaining or deserving kindness; if he succeeds, he benefits his friend; and if he fails, he has at least the consciousness that he suffers for only doing well."
Johnson: Rambler #40 (August 4, 1750)
Link


921. Advice
"Reproof should not exhaust its power upon petty failings."
Johnson: Idler #25 (October 7, 1758)
Link


962. Advice
"Few things are so liberally bestowed, or squandered with so little effect, as good advice."
Johnson: Rambler #87 (January 15, 1751)
Link


963. Advice; Goodness; Happiness; Life
"Little would be wanting to the happiness of life, if every man could conform to the right as soon as he was shown it."
Johnson: Rambler #87 (January 15, 1751)
Link


964. Advice
"If we consider the manner in which those who assume the office of directing the conduct of others execute their undertaking, it will not be very wonderful that their labours, however zealous or affectionate, are frequently useless. For what is the advice that is commonly given? A few general maxims, enforced with vehemence, and inculcated with importunity, but failing for want of particular reference and immediate application."
Johnson: Rambler #87 (January 15, 1751)
Link


965. Advice
"It is not often that any man can have so much knowledge of another as is necessary to make instruction useful. We are sometimes not ourselves conscious of the original motives of our actions; and when we know them, our first care is to hide them from the sight of others, and often from those most diligently, whose superiority either of power or understanding may entitle them to inspect our lives; it is, therefore, very probable, that he who endeavours to cure our intellectual maladies, mistakes their cause; and that his prescriptions avail nothing, because he knows not which of the passions or desires is vitiated."
Johnson: Rambler #87 (January 15, 1751)
Link


966. Advice; Posturing; Vanity
"Advice, as it always gives a temporary appearance of superiority, can never be very grateful, even when it is most necessary or most judicious. But for the same reason everyone is eager to instruct his neighbours. To be wise or to be virtuous is to buy dignity and importance at a high price; but when nothing is necessary to elevation but detection of the follies or faults of others, no man is so insensible to the voice of fame as to linger on the ground."
Johnson: Rambler #87 (January 15, 1751)
Link


967. Advice; Vanity
"Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice that we, for the most part, summon our powers to oppose it without very accurate inquiry whether it is right. It is sufficient that another is growing great in his own eyes at our expense, and assumes authority over us without our permission; for many would contentedly suffer the consequences of their own mistakes, rather than the insolence of him who triumphs as their deliverer."
Johnson: Rambler #87 (January 15, 1751)
Link


968. Advice; Vanity
"There are few so free from vanity as not to dictate to those who will hear their instructions with a visible sense of their own beneficence."
Johnson: Rambler #87 (January 15, 1751)
Link


1,268. Advice; Vanity
"Advice is offensive, not because it lays us open to unexpected regret, or convicts us of any fault which had escaped our notice, but because it shows us that we are known to others as well as to ourselves; and the officious monitor is persecuted with hatred, not because his accusation is false, but because he assumes that superiority which we are not willing to grant him, and has dared to detect what we desired to conceal."
Johnson: Rambler #155 (September 10, 1751)
Link


1,269. Advice; Temptation; Vanity
"If those who follow the call of their desires, without inquiry whither they are going, had deviated ignorantly from the paths of wisdom, and were rushing upon dangers unforeseen, they would readily listen to information that recalls them from their errors, and catch the first alarm by which destruction or infamy is denounced. Few that wander in the wrong way mistake it for the right; they only find it more smooth and flowery, and indulge their own choice rather than approve it: therefore few are persuaded to quit it by admonition or reproof, since it impresses no new conviction, nor confers any action or resistance. He that is gravely informed how soon profusion will annihilate his fortune, hears with little advantage what he knew before, and catches at the next occasion of expense, because advice has no force to suppress his vanity. He that is told how certainly intemperance will hurry him to the grave runs with his usual speed to a new course of luxury, because his reason is not invigorated, nor his appetite weakened."
Johnson: Rambler #155 (September 10, 1751)
Link


1,385. Advice
"No man tells his opinion so freely as when he imagines it received with implicit veneration."
Johnson: Rambler #176 (November 23, 1751)
Link


1,549. Advice
"That there is something in advice very useful and salutary, seems to be equally confessed on all hands; since even those that reject it, allow for the most part that rejection to be wrong, but charge the fault upon the unskilful manner in which it is given; they admit the efficacy of the medicine, but abhor the nauseousness of the vehicle."
Johnson: Adventurer #74 (July 21, 1753)
Link


1,550. Advice; Youth
"The desire of advising has a very extensive prevalence; and, since advice cannot be given but to those that will hear it, a patient listener is necessary to the accommodation of all those who desire to be confirmed in the opinion of their own wisdom: a patient listener, however, is not always to be had; the present age, whatever age is present, is so vitiated and disordered, that young people are readier to talk than to attend, and good counsel is only thrown away upon those who are full of their own perfections."
Johnson: Adventurer #74 (July 21, 1753)
Link


The Samuel Johnson Sound Bite Page
Back to Top
Home | Topical Guide | Search the SiteThis image is only to register visitors
who come through cached search engine pages.