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Quiz about Quotes by Dr Johnson
Quiz about Quotes by Dr Johnson

Quotes by Dr Johnson Trivia Quiz


In just about any dictionary of English quotations, Dr Johnson is one of the main sources with his unique mixture of wit, wisdom and downright rudeness. How well do you know his sayings?

A multiple-choice quiz by TabbyTom. Estimated time: 8 mins.
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Author
TabbyTom
Time
8 mins
Type
Multiple Choice
Quiz #
110,016
Updated
Jul 23 22
# Qns
25
Difficulty
Tough
Avg Score
13 / 25
Plays
1129
Awards
Top 35% Quiz
- -
Question 1 of 25
1. Johnson's biographer, James Boswell, first met the Doctor on May 16, 1763. Dining at the Mitre a few weeks later as Boswell's guest, Johnson observed that "the noblest prospect that a Scotchman ever sees is ______." Hint


Question 2 of 25
2. Towards the end of the same month, Boswell went to a Quaker meeting and told Johnson that he had heard a woman preach there. Said Johnson: "Sir, a woman's preaching is like ______: it is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all." Hint


Question 3 of 25
3. The following month, Johnson and Boswell went to the Netherlands. Dining at Colchester on the way to Harwich, Johnson said that "he who does not mind his ______ will hardly mind anything else." Hint


Question 4 of 25
4. The Rev William Maxwell reports that Johnson described an acquaintance's action as "the triumph of hope over experience." What had the man in question just done for the second time? Hint


Question 5 of 25
5. On April 30, 1773, Boswell was at a meeting of Johnson's club and was elected as a member. In a literary discussion, Johnson recalled some advice he had received from a college tutor, which he thought some writers would do well to follow. "Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, _______." Hint


Question 6 of 25
6. At breakfast on March 27, 1775, Johnson thought that "there are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in ______." Hint


Question 7 of 25
7. "______ is the last refuge of a scoundrel," said Johnson on April 7, 1775 at a dinner in a London tavern. Hint


Question 8 of 25
8. On March 21, 1776, Johnson told Boswell that "there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by ______." Hint


Question 9 of 25
9. "______ is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen" is one of the snippets of conversation recorded by Boswell during a visit that he and Johnson made to Johnson's home town of Lichfield in 1776. Hint


Question 10 of 25
10. Dining with friends on the same trip, Johnson claimed that "______ are good only as they supply the want of other means of procuring respect." Hint


Question 11 of 25
11. "We would all be ______ if we could," observed Johnson in April 1776. Hint


Question 12 of 25
12. "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except ______," he remarked two days later. Hint


Question 13 of 25
13. Satirizing an "odd mode" of poetry, Johnson ridiculed it by producing the following. Can you supply the last line?

"Hermit hoar, in solemn cell,/Wearing out life's evening grey;/Smite thy bosom, sage, and tell/What is bliss, and which the way?"/Thus I spoke, and speaking sighed -/Scarce repressed the starting tear -/When the smiling sage replied/______
Hint


Question 14 of 25
14. "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be ______, it concentrates his mind wonderfully," said Johnson in 1777. Hint


Question 15 of 25
15. In September 1777, Johnson said that "when a man is tired of ______, he is tired of life." Hint


Question 16 of 25
16. "I am willing to love all mankind, except ______," declared Johnson in April 1778. Hint


Question 17 of 25
17. At dinner with Sir Joshua Reynolds in April 1779, the conversation turned to the qualities of different liquors. Said Johnson "claret is the liquor for boys, port for men, but he who aspires to be a hero must drink ______." Hint


Question 18 of 25
18. What did Johnson describe, in October 1779, as "Worth seeing? Yes, but not worth going to see." Hint


Question 19 of 25
19. In May 1781 Johnson attended a "blue-stocking club" meeting at which the writings of Sterne were discussed. Johnson denied that the works were at all moving, to which "the lively Miss Monckton" replied "I am sure they have affected ME." Johnson's rejoinder was, "Why, that is because, dearest, you're ______." Hint


Question 20 of 25
20. "Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance!" was Johnson's reply to a question from a lady. What had she asked him? Hint


Question 21 of 25
21. In the preface to his Dictionary, Johnson says that "every ______ contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language." Hint


Question 22 of 25
22. What word is defined in Johnson's dictionary as "anything reticulated or decussated at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections"?

Answer: (One word, beginning with N)
Question 23 of 25
23. According to William Seward, Johnson said "What is written without effort is in general read without ______." Hint


Question 24 of 25
24. In No 11 of his magazine "The Idler", Johnson notes that "when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of ______." Hint


Question 25 of 25
25. In "Rasselas", the princess Nekayah says that "______ has many pains, but ______ has no pleasures." What are the two missing words? Hint



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Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts
1. Johnson's biographer, James Boswell, first met the Doctor on May 16, 1763. Dining at the Mitre a few weeks later as Boswell's guest, Johnson observed that "the noblest prospect that a Scotchman ever sees is ______."

Answer: the high road that leads him to England

One of his fellow guests, the Rev John Ogilvie, had spoken in praise of the "noble wild prospects" of the Scottish landscape. Johnson had a typical anti-Scottish put-down at the ready.

Although England and Scotland had been under the same crown for more than a century and a half, full political union was not much more than 50 years old. To many English, the Scots were still fairly foreign, and Johnson's jibe reflects a not uncommon English attitude to the "Scotsman on the make".
2. Towards the end of the same month, Boswell went to a Quaker meeting and told Johnson that he had heard a woman preach there. Said Johnson: "Sir, a woman's preaching is like ______: it is not done well, but you are surprised to find it done at all."

Answer: a dog's walking on his hinder legs

Well, you wouldn't expect a Tory Anglican like Johnson to favour women ministers of religion, would you?
3. The following month, Johnson and Boswell went to the Netherlands. Dining at Colchester on the way to Harwich, Johnson said that "he who does not mind his ______ will hardly mind anything else."

Answer: belly

As Boswell points out, Johnson voiced different views at other times, notably in an attack on gluttony in No 206 of the "Rambler". But generally Johnson seems to have been a man who demanded both quality and quantity at mealtimes.
4. The Rev William Maxwell reports that Johnson described an acquaintance's action as "the triumph of hope over experience." What had the man in question just done for the second time?

Answer: married

The man in question had apparently been notoriously unhappy in his first marriage, but had married again very soon after the death of his wife.
5. On April 30, 1773, Boswell was at a meeting of Johnson's club and was elected as a member. In a literary discussion, Johnson recalled some advice he had received from a college tutor, which he thought some writers would do well to follow. "Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, _______."

Answer: strike it out

Johnson was criticizing Dr William Robertson's History of Scotland and comparing it unfavourably with Oliver Goldsmith's Roman History. It is only fair to say that Johnson's views on Robertson were not shared by writers like Walpole, Hume, Burke and Gibbon; and, since Robertson was a Scot, Johnson may have been simply indulging his prejudices again.
6. At breakfast on March 27, 1775, Johnson thought that "there are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in ______."

Answer: getting money

Well, there are innocent and not so innocent ways of getting money; but Johnson's way of getting it was certainly commendable.
7. "______ is the last refuge of a scoundrel," said Johnson on April 7, 1775 at a dinner in a London tavern.

Answer: Patriotism

"But let it be considered," adds Boswell, "that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak for self-interest". In that case, patriotism is surely very often the first, not the last, refuge of scoundrels.
8. On March 21, 1776, Johnson told Boswell that "there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by ______."

Answer: a good tavern or inn

They were dining in "an excellent inn" at the time. Hawkins, in his "Life of Johnson" (a rival to Boswell's), reports a similar saying: "I have heard him assert that a tavern chair was the height of human felicity." Johnson is traditionally supposed to have been a habitué of the Cheshire Cheese in Fleet Street.

In fact, there is no conclusive evidence that Johnson ever visited it, though it is certainly very close to where he lived, and a Victorian journalist called Cyrus Redding remembered speaking to old people who claimed to have met Johnson in the Cheese.

At all events, the pub has been a favourite haunt of many literary men, including Dickens, and is well worth a visit: when I was last there, they served Marston's Pedigree, a very tasty and deceptively powerful beer.
9. "______ is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen" is one of the snippets of conversation recorded by Boswell during a visit that he and Johnson made to Johnson's home town of Lichfield in 1776.

Answer: Questioning

Presumably Johnson wouldn't have welcomed a pub quiz night at the Cheshire Cheese!
10. Dining with friends on the same trip, Johnson claimed that "______ are good only as they supply the want of other means of procuring respect."

Answer: fine clothes

Johnson seems to have been pretty slovenly in his dress.
11. "We would all be ______ if we could," observed Johnson in April 1776.

Answer: idle

The discussion had been about whether dons at Oxford and Cambridge were overpaid or underpaid. "To be sure," said Johnson, "a man who has enough without teaching will probably not teach, for we would all be idle if we could."
12. "No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except ______," he remarked two days later.

Answer: for money

This may be untrue, but at all events it's unlikely that Johnson himself would ever have written anything if he hadn't needed money. He had to work hard at writing for much of his life, but never deceived himself or others about his motives.
13. Satirizing an "odd mode" of poetry, Johnson ridiculed it by producing the following. Can you supply the last line? "Hermit hoar, in solemn cell,/Wearing out life's evening grey;/Smite thy bosom, sage, and tell/What is bliss, and which the way?"/Thus I spoke, and speaking sighed -/Scarce repressed the starting tear -/When the smiling sage replied/______

Answer: "Come, my lad, and drink some beer!"

Johnson was guying the work of Thomas Warton. Warton was an Oxford don with a great knowledge of older English poetry: Johnson had a great respect for him as a critic and editor, but saw little merit in his attempts at verse.
14. "Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be ______, it concentrates his mind wonderfully," said Johnson in 1777.

Answer: hanged in a fortnight

William Dodd, a popular preacher, was convicted of forgery and hanged at Tyburn, in spite of a campaign (in which Johnson played a leading part) to get him reprieved. While imprisoned at Newgate, he delivered a sermon in the chapel entitled "The Convict's Address to his Unhappy Brethren", which had been written for him by Johnson.

It was suggested to Johnson that the sermon could not be Dodd's work, "because it had a great deal more force of mind in it than anything known to be his". Johnson replied, "Why should you think so? Depend upon it, Sir, etc."
15. In September 1777, Johnson said that "when a man is tired of ______, he is tired of life."

Answer: London

Boswell felt that, if he lived in London, "the exquisite zest with which I relished it on occasional visits might go off, and I might grow tired of it." Johnson had no such fears.
16. "I am willing to love all mankind, except ______," declared Johnson in April 1778.

Answer: an American

Johnson, a lifelong Tory, had no sympathy with what he called "the ridiculous claims of American usurpation."
17. At dinner with Sir Joshua Reynolds in April 1779, the conversation turned to the qualities of different liquors. Said Johnson "claret is the liquor for boys, port for men, but he who aspires to be a hero must drink ______."

Answer: brandy

In Johnson's view, a man could drown in claret before it would make him drunk. But "there are indeed few who can drink brandy. That is a power rather to be wished for than attained."
18. What did Johnson describe, in October 1779, as "Worth seeing? Yes, but not worth going to see."

Answer: the Giant's Causeway

Boswell had proposed a tour to Ireland, but Johnson could not be persuaded. When Boswell asked "Is not the Giant's Causeway worth seeing?", this was his reply.
19. In May 1781 Johnson attended a "blue-stocking club" meeting at which the writings of Sterne were discussed. Johnson denied that the works were at all moving, to which "the lively Miss Monckton" replied "I am sure they have affected ME." Johnson's rejoinder was, "Why, that is because, dearest, you're ______."

Answer: a dunce

Despite this, Mary Monckton (later Countess of Cork and Orrery) remained fond of Johnson. When he became too ill to go out, she often visited him with friends.
20. "Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance!" was Johnson's reply to a question from a lady. What had she asked him?

Answer: why he had defined a word wrongly in his dictionary

Johnson had defined "pastern" as "the knee of a horse". He could well afford to be humble for once: the reputation of his dictionary would not be affected by one or two minor mistakes.
21. In the preface to his Dictionary, Johnson says that "every ______ contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language."

Answer: quotation

So Fun Trivia members who compile quotation quizzes are doing a worthwhile job! Johnson's was the first English dictionary to illustrate the meanings of words with quotations from a variety of authors.
22. What word is defined in Johnson's dictionary as "anything reticulated or decussated at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections"?

Answer: network

This definition is a famous example of what has been called "Johnsonese", i.e. a rather pompous Latinate way of talking about simple everyday things. But "net" is not an easy word to define simply, though I've heard an alternative definition that I rather like - "a lot of holes held together with string".
23. According to William Seward, Johnson said "What is written without effort is in general read without ______."

Answer: pleasure

Seward, who was nearly forty years younger than Johnson, was well known in literary circles and became a close friend of Johnson towards the end of his life.
24. In No 11 of his magazine "The Idler", Johnson notes that "when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of ______."

Answer: the weather

Our weather continues to be a fascinating topic of conversation for us Brits today, maybe because it's so changeable.
25. In "Rasselas", the princess Nekayah says that "______ has many pains, but ______ has no pleasures." What are the two missing words?

Answer: marriage; celibacy

Nobody can ever accuse Johnson of raising unrealistic expectations in his readers!
Source: Author TabbyTom

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor Lanni before going online.
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