Autres citations de Samuel Johnson:
"To a poet nothing can be useless." / Pour un poète, rien ne peut être inutile.
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." / "Le patriotisme est l’ultime refuge d’un scélérat." / "El patriotismo es el último refugio de un canalla."
"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it."
"En la mayoría de los hombres, las dificultades son hijas de la pereza."
"Un hombre acostumbrado a las adversidades no es fácilmente sorprendido."
"Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment."
"Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."
"It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world."
"All argument is against it; but all belief is for it."
"Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult."
"As I know more of mankind, I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man, upon easier terms than I was formerly."
"Example is always more efficacious than precept."
"Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings."
"Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything."
"Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome."
"A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good."
"But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons."
"Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance."
"Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures." / "Le mariage occasionne de multiples douleurs, mais le célibat n'offre aucun plaisir." / "Un second mariage est le triomphe de l’espérance sur l’expérience."
"Liberty is, to the lowest rank of every nation, little more than the choice of working or starving."
"They who complain, in peace, of the insolence of the populace, must remember, that their insolence in peace is bravery in war."
"Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little."
"Resolve to spend a certain number of hours every day amongst your books."
"I am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those they provoke."
"There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity."
"There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed."
"Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect."
"No man is much pleased with a companion, who does not increase, in some respect, his fondness for himself."
"Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble."
"Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments."
"Perhaps, the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in few words."
"Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages."
"Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. The flowers which scatter their odours from time to time in the paths of life, grow up without culture from seeds scattered by chance. Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment." / "Merriment is always the effect of a sudden impression. The jest which is expected is already destroyed." / "It is seldom that we find either men or places such as we expect them. Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction."
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https://blogs.mediapart.fr/wawa/blog/031121/homeland-fatherland-patrie-etat
https://blogs.mediapart.fr/wawa/blog/200322/lamour-est-pourtant-une-chose-simple-mais-le-mariage
https://blogs.mediapart.fr/wawa/blog/210123/lexperience-de-la-vie
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