Samuel Johnson frasi celebri
“Richardson aveva colto il nocciolo della vita… mentre Fielding si era accontentato del guscio.”
da Thraliana , a cura di Balderston, I, p. 555
riferendosi ai critici; citato in James Boswell, Vita di Samuel Johnson, 1754
citato in James Boswell, Vita di Samuel Johnson, 14 luglio 1763
“Ciò che è scritto senza sforzo è generalmente letto senza piacere.”
da Miscellanies
Johnson Miscellanies
Samuel Johnson Frasi e Citazioni
“Fielding è capace di descrivere un cavallo o un asino ma non ci è mai riuscito con un mulo.”
da Johnson Miscellanies, a cura di George Birkbeck Norman Hill, I, pp. 273-4
Origine: Citato in Ian Watt, Le origini del romanzo borghese (The Rise Of The Novel), traduzione di Luigi Del Grosso Destrieri, Bompiani, Milano, 1985.
“Le cifre tonde sono sempre false.”
citato in Apophthegms, Sentiments, Opinions and Occasional Reflections di Sir John Hawkins, in Johnsonian Miscellanies (1897), vol. II, pag. 2, edito da George Birkbeck Hill
Johnson Miscellanies
citato in James Boswell, Vita di Samuel Johnson, 30 aprile 1773
Origine: Citato in John Lukacs, Democrazia e populismo, traduzione di Giovanni Ferrara degli Uberti, Longanesi, 2006, p. 152.
citato in James Boswell, Vita di Samuel Johnson
Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.
[Citazione errata] Questa citazione viene spesso attribuita a Johnson ma non trova alcun riscontro nelle opere o nelle lettere dello scrittore, né tanto meno nelle biografie di Johnson scritte dai suoi contemporanei.
Attribuite
Origine: Samuel Johnson did not say: "Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good." http://www.samueljohnson.com/goodorig.html, Samuel Johnson.com.
“In quante poche case degli amici sceglierebbe di stare un uomo quando è ammalato!”
Origine: Citato in Boswell, Life of Johnson, IV.
Origine: Citato in Dizionario delle citazioni, a cura di Italo Sordi, BUR, 1992. ISBN 14603-X
“La natura ha dato alla donna un tale potere che la legge ha giustamente deciso di dargliene poco.”
Origine: Da Letters, I.
Origine: Citato in Dizionario delle citazioni, a cura di Italo Sordi, BUR, 1992. ISBN 14603-X
Samuel Johnson: Frasi in inglese
“Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.”
Actually said by Thomas Cooper, a U.S. politician.
Misattributed
“No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.”
On Oliver Goldsmith1780
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV
Letter to Hester Thrale (5 July 1783) http://books.google.com/books?id=8JuiYLGldcsC&pg=PA169&lpg=PA169&dq=%22samuel+johnson%22+few+attacks+ridicule+invective+noise+provoke&source=web&ots=HMST_SM18L&sig=xovCcC2lKiTX9V0p61QvIC_yHW0&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result
1769
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)
1735
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I
“There Poetry shall tune her sacred voice,
And wake from ignorance the Western World.”
The Tragedy of Irene (1749), Act IV, Sc. 1
“This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.”
1763
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)
The Life of Cowley http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/lvwal10h.htm
Lives of the English Poets (1779–81)
“He was so generally civil that nobody thanked him for it.”
1777
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)
Letter http://books.google.com/books?id=yEA_AQAAMAAJ&q=%22small+debts+are+like+small+shot+they+are+rattling+on+every+side+and+can+scarcely+be+escaped+without+a+wound+great+debts+are+like+cannon+of+loud+noise+but+little+danger%22&pg=PA189#v=onepage to Joseph Simpson, circa 1759
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I
“All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it.”
April 15, 1778, p. 393
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III
May 1781
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol IV
“Why, Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them.”
Feb. 15, 1766, p. 145
Said of Rousseau and Voltaire
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol II
May 9, 1778, p. 409
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol III
Origine: Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson (1786), p. 83
1752
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919), Life of Johnson (Boswell)
August 6, 1763, p. 134
Said as he kicked a stone, speaking of Berkeley's "ingenious sophistry to prove the non-existence of matter".
Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), Vol I
Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.
Preface http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Texts/preface.html
A Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
“Enlarge my life with multitude of days!”
In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays:
Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know
That life protracted is protracted woe.
Origine: Vanity of Human Wishes (1749), Line 255
p. 8. https://books.google.com/books?id=-6JfAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA8
A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775)
pp. 366-367. https://books.google.com/books?id=-6JfAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA366
A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland (1775)
The Rambler, No. 150 (Sat 24 Aug 1751). http://www.yalejohnson.com/frontend/sda_viewer?n=106855 See also The Yale Book of Quotations, Samuel Johnson 3 (2006)
