Samuel Johnson Quotes

Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ign...

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

My congratulations to you, sir. Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good...

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken, themselves to errour. T...

You can never be wise unless you love reading.

It has been observed in all ages that the advantages of nature or of fortune have contributed very l...

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business ...

Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wo...

If the changes that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but to acquiesce with silence, as in ...

Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not because they are mistaken for realities, but because they b...

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upo...

The composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend in the air, interspersed sometimes ...

Shakespeare opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty, though clouded by...

There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but ...

I can discover within me no power of perception which is not glutted with its proper pleasure, yet I...

Ignorance, when voluntary, is criminal, and a man may be properly charged with that evil which he ne...

The best part of every author is in general to be found in his book I assure you.

It is unjust to claim the privileges of age and retain the playthings of childhood.

Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by sp...

Such is the state of life that none are happy but by the anticipation of change. The change itself i...

Man is not weak - knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanics laughs at stre...

Never speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate and may be offensive .

Alas! another instance of the triumph of hope over experience.

Despair is criminal.

Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected even when it i...

It is necessary to hope... for hope itself is happiness.

If the man who turnips cries Cry not when his father dies 'Tis proof that he had rather Have a tur...

No man is much pleased with a companion who does not increase in some respect his fondness of hims...

The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general...

To go and see one druidical temple is only to see that it is nothing, for there is neither art nor p...

A tavern chair is the throne of human felicity.

Men are like stone jugs - you may lug them where you like by the ears.

I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's...

The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

As the Spanish proverb says 'He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealt...

I like a good hater.

He that has much to do will do something wrong.

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being...

Your manuscript is both good and original but the parts that are good are not original and the par...

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be sile...

I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him you have no business ...

As the faculty of writing has chiefly been a masculine endowment the reproach of making the world m...

Silence propagates itself and the longer talk has been suspended the more difficult it is to find ...

Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young.

Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go ...

Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things t...

If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand no doubt we should pity the state ...

O how vain and vile a passion is this fear! What base uncomely things it makes men do.

He left the name at which the world grew pale To point a moral or adorn a tale.

The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.

Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.

None are happy but by the anticipation of change. The change itself is nothing when we have made it...

No mind is much employed upon the present recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our mome...

What cannot be repaired is not to be regretted.

Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife he is always proud of himself as the so...

Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.

No member of a society has a right to teach any doctrine contrary to what society holds to be true.

The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nat...

None but a fool worries about things he cannot influence.

A man who writes a book, thinks himself wiser or wittier than the rest of mankind; he supposes that ...

Marriage has many pains but celibacy has no pleasures.

To hear complaints is wearisome to the wretched and the happy alike.

Nothing at all will be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

Very few live by choice. Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without ...

A man must carry knowledge with him if he would bring home knowledge.

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may ...

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and...

That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own esteem.

Knowledge is of two kinds we know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upo...

Oats n.s. A grain which in England is generally given to horses but in Scotland supports the peopl...

Such is the state of life that none are happy but by the anticipation of change. The change itself i...

Pride is seldom delicate: it will please itself with very mean advantages.

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties.

Promise large promise is the soul of an advertisement.

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.

I know not why any one but a schoolboy in his declamation should whine over the Commonwealth of Rome...

(Adversity is) the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself being especiall...

Friendship is a union of spirits a marriage of hearts and the bond there of virtue.

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

Friendship peculiar boon of Heaven The noble mind's delight and pride To men and angels only give...

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer ...

That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner.

men do not suspect faults which they do not commit

That friendship may be at once fond and lasting there must not only be equal virtue on each part b...

Claret is the liquor for boys port for men but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.

To be of no Church is dangerous.

No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.

Read over your compositions and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine strik...

Perhaps the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse ...

A man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man because he has both enjoyments.

When an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance and when he is dead ...

The man who is asked by an author what he thinks of his work is put to the torture and is not oblige...

Whoever thou art that, not content with a moderate condition, imaginest happiness in royal magnifice...