Famous Samuel Johnson Quotations

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"No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library."
by Samuel Johnson
"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money."
by Samuel Johnson
"Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures."
by Samuel Johnson
"It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time."
by Samuel Johnson
"Language is the dress of thought."
by Samuel Johnson
"Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself."
by Samuel Johnson
"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."
by Samuel Johnson
"There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman."
by Samuel Johnson
"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."
by Samuel Johnson
"A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk."
by Samuel Johnson
"A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek."
by Samuel Johnson
"The endearing elegance of female friendship."
by Samuel Johnson
"The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning."
by Samuel Johnson
"The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape."
by Samuel Johnson
"The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it."
by Samuel Johnson
"There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful."
by Samuel Johnson
"There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity."
by Samuel Johnson
"There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex."
by Samuel Johnson
"There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible."
by Samuel Johnson
"To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution."
by Samuel Johnson
"To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly."
by Samuel Johnson
"We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting."
by Samuel Johnson
"Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess."
by Samuel Johnson
"What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence."
by Samuel Johnson
"When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully."
by Samuel Johnson
"While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it."
by Samuel Johnson
"Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off."
by Samuel Johnson
"Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates."
by Samuel Johnson
"Worth seeing? Yes; but not worth going to see."
by Samuel Johnson
"Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind."
by Samuel Johnson
"Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye."
by Samuel Johnson
"Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them."
by Samuel Johnson
"I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations."
by Samuel Johnson
"I hate mankind, for I think of myself as one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am."
by Samuel Johnson
"I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world."
by Samuel Johnson
"I will be conquered; I will not capitulate."
by Samuel Johnson
"If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance."
by Samuel Johnson
"Knowledge always demands increase; it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but will afterwards always propagate itself."
by Samuel Johnson
"Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him."
by Samuel Johnson
"Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home."
by Samuel Johnson
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."
by Samuel Johnson
"Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks."
by Samuel Johnson
"Round numbers are always false."
by Samuel Johnson
"So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other."
by Samuel Johnson
"No member of society has the right to teach any doctrine contrary to what society holds to be true."
by Samuel Johnson
"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful."
by Samuel Johnson
"It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability."
by Samuel Johnson
"It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other."
by Samuel Johnson
"I have thought of a pulley to raise me gradually; but that would give me pain, as it would counteract my natural inclination. I would have something that can dissipate the inertia and give elasticity to the muscles. We can heat the body, we can cool it; we can give it tension or relaxation; and surely it is possible to bring it into a state in which rising from bed will not be a pain."
by Samuel Johnson
"I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read."
by Samuel Johnson
"By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time."
by Samuel Johnson
"Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity."
by Samuel Johnson
"Do not discourage your children from hoarding, if they have a taste to it; whoever lays up his penny rather than part with it for a cake, at least is not the slave of gross appetite; and shows besides a preference always to be esteemed, of the future to the present moment."
by Samuel Johnson
"I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him."
by Samuel Johnson
"All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it."
by Samuel Johnson
"The future is purchased by the present."
by Samuel Johnson
"He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage."
by Samuel Johnson
"A am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice."
by Samuel Johnson
"From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life."
by Samuel Johnson
"A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization"
by Samuel Johnson
"A cucumber whould be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and viniger, and then thrown out, as good for nothing."
by Samuel Johnson
"A cucumber should be well-sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out."
by Samuel Johnson
"A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still."
by Samuel Johnson
"A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other."
by Samuel Johnson
"A Frenchman must always be talking, whether or not he knows anything of the matter or not; an Englishman is content to say nothing when he has nothing to say."
by Samuel Johnson
"A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse, and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still"
by Samuel Johnson
"A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge."
by Samuel Johnson
"A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him."
by Samuel Johnson
"A man will turn over half a library to make one book."
by Samuel Johnson
"A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner."
by Samuel Johnson
"A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good."
by Samuel Johnson
"A man ought to read just as inclination leads him for what he reads as a task will do him little good."
by Samuel Johnson
"A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself."
by Samuel Johnson
"A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself"
by Samuel Johnson
"A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in constant repair"
by Samuel Johnson
"A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority."
by Samuel Johnson
"A second marriage is the triumph of hope over experience"
by Samuel Johnson
"A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain."
by Samuel Johnson
"A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him."
by Samuel Johnson
"Abstinence is as easy to me, as temperance would be difficult."
by Samuel Johnson
"Actions are visible, though motives are secret."
by Samuel Johnson
"Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us."
by Samuel Johnson
"Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own."
by Samuel Johnson
"All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance; it is by this that the quarry becomes a pyramid, and that distant countries are united with canals."
by Samuel Johnson
"All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil."
by Samuel Johnson
"Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess."
by Samuel Johnson
"Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble."
by Samuel Johnson
"Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble."
by Samuel Johnson
"Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?"
by Samuel Johnson
"All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it."
by Samuel Johnson
"Always set high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you."
by Samuel Johnson
"Americans are a race of convicts and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging."
by Samuel Johnson
"An intellectual improvement arises from leisure."
by Samuel Johnson
"An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere."
by Samuel Johnson
"As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which he cannot apply will make no man wise."
by Samuel Johnson
"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."
by Samuel Johnson
"At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest."
by Samuel Johnson
"Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives."
by Samuel Johnson
"Be not too hasty to trust or admire the teachers of morality they discourse like angels, but they live like men."
by Samuel Johnson
"Being in a ship is like being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned."
by Samuel Johnson


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