Johnson, Samuel
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Johnson, Samuel
He who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do anything.
Johnson, Samuel
Charity
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
Johnson, Samuel
Books - Reading
Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.
Johnson, Samuel
Bores and Boredom
Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
Johnson, Samuel
Desire
You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.
Johnson, Samuel
Daughters
Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return.
Johnson, Samuel
Bores and Boredom
Every other enjoyment malice may destroy; every other panegyric envy may withhold; but no human power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums.
Johnson, Samuel
Bragging
Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.
Johnson, Samuel
Desire
Read your own compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
Johnson, Samuel
Editing and Editors
This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.
Johnson, Samuel
Churches
Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to be quite true.
Johnson, Samuel
Dictionaries
You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labor, than when you give money merely in charity.
Johnson, Samuel
Charity
No man likes to live under the eye of perpetual disapprobation.
Johnson, Samuel
Disapproval
The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty.
Johnson, Samuel
Compassion
Hunger is never delicate; they who are seldom gorged to the full with praise may be safely fed with gross compliments, for the appetite must be satisfied before it is disgusted.
Johnson, Samuel
Compliments
Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success; for it supplies as many images to the mind, and as many topics to the tongue.
Johnson, Samuel
Disappointments
Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity.
Johnson, Samuel
Christians and Christianity
Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again. The world is not yet exhausted; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.
Johnson, Samuel
Change
Those who attain to any excellence commonly spend life in some single pursuit, for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.
Johnson, Samuel
Concentration
I gleaned jests at home from obsolete farces.
Johnson, Samuel
Jokes and Jokers
Sir, a man who cannot get to heaven in a green coat, will not find his way thither the sooner in a gray one.
Johnson, Samuel
Dress
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.
Johnson, Samuel
Determination
The luster of diamonds is invigorated by the interposition of darker bodies; the lights of a picture are created by the shades; the highest pleasure which nature has indulged to sensitive perception is that of rest after fatigue.
Johnson, Samuel
Contrast
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.
Johnson, Samuel
Curiosity
Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.
Johnson, Samuel
Curiosity
Small debts are like small gun shot; they are rattling around us on all sides and one can scarcely escape being wounded. Large debts are like canons, they produce a loud noise, but are of little danger.
Johnson, Samuel
Debt
Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.
Johnson, Samuel
Critics and Criticism
Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.
Johnson, Samuel
Disease
Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.
Johnson, Samuel
Books - Reading
Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.
Johnson, Samuel
Critics and Criticism
A man ought to read just as his inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.
Johnson, Samuel
Books - Reading
Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted to very few.
Johnson, Samuel
Dictionaries
I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse.
Johnson, Samuel
Critics and Criticism
Sir, he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull everywhere. He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him great.
Johnson, Samuel
Dullness
Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.
Johnson, Samuel
Compromise
No member of society has the right to teach any doctrine contrary to what society holds to be true.
Johnson, Samuel
Censorship
It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief.
Johnson, Samuel
Censorship
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.
Johnson, Samuel
Deception
I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl; let him come out as I do, and bark.
Johnson, Samuel
Coward and Cowardice
Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.
Johnson, Samuel
Dictionaries
No two men can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.
Johnson, Samuel
Cooperation
The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.
Johnson, Samuel
Complaints and Complaining
Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him.
Johnson, Samuel
Complaints and Complaining
Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
Johnson, Samuel
Confidence
As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.
Johnson, Samuel
Idleness
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.
Johnson, Samuel
Diligence
Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.
Johnson, Samuel
Cities and City Life
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.
Johnson, Samuel
Death and Dying
There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
Johnson, Samuel
Confidence
There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?
Johnson, Samuel
Creation
Perhaps man is the only being that can properly be called idle.
Johnson, Samuel
Idleness
There are charms made only for distance admiration.
Johnson, Samuel
Charm
It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.
Johnson, Samuel
Confidence
I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.
Johnson, Samuel
Death and Dying
Exercise is labor without weariness.
Johnson, Samuel
Exercise
Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness.
Johnson, Samuel
Happiness
To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.
Johnson, Samuel
Happiness
We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found; and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.
Johnson, Samuel
Happiness
He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.
Johnson, Samuel
Greatness
Happiness is not a state to arrive at, rather, a manner of traveling.
Johnson, Samuel
Happiness
For who is pleased with himself.
Johnson, Samuel
Happiness
The habit of looking on the best side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a years.
Johnson, Samuel
Habit
No one ever became great by imitation.
Johnson, Samuel
Greatness
It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honor, and fictitious benevolence.
Johnson, Samuel
Home
Shame arises from the fear of men, conscience from the fear of God.
Johnson, Samuel
Fear
Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.
Johnson, Samuel
Law and Lawyers
Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.
Johnson, Samuel
Love
The Supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things -- the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.
Johnson, Samuel
Good and Evil
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.
Johnson, Samuel
Grief
Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.
Johnson, Samuel
Grief
There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.
Johnson, Samuel
Gratitude
Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil; but its duty, like that of other passions, is not to overbear reason, but to assist it. It should not be suffered to tyrannize
Johnson, Samuel
Fear
That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.
Johnson, Samuel
Mistakes
We are inclined to believe those whom we don not know because they have never deceived us.
Johnson, Samuel
Gullibility
I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise.
Johnson, Samuel
Indifference
The chains of habit are generally too week to be felt, until they are too strong to be broken.
Johnson, Samuel
Habit
I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.
Johnson, Samuel
Government
I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney.
Johnson, Samuel
Law and Lawyers
The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.
Johnson, Samuel
Greatness
Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition. He that sinks under the fatigue of getting wealth, lulls his age with the milder business of saving it.
Johnson, Samuel
Greed
Fly fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.
Johnson, Samuel
Fishing
Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any degree; only about as much as is used in the lowest kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and coloring, will fit a man for the task, if he can give the application which is necessary.
Johnson, Samuel
History and Historians
A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.
Johnson, Samuel
Food and Eating
The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.
Johnson, Samuel
Glory
When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
Johnson, Samuel
Focus
Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.
Johnson, Samuel
Patronage
Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.
Johnson, Samuel
Patronage
Extended empires are like expanded gold, exchanging solid strength for feeble splendor.
Johnson, Samuel
Focus
The future is purchased by the present.
Johnson, Samuel
Future
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.
Johnson, Samuel
Flirting
Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man; but I call him an unsociable man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is a mode of transferring property without producing any intermediate good.
Johnson, Samuel
Gambling
His scorn of the great is repeated too often to be real; no man thinks much of that which he despises.
Johnson, Samuel
Envy
Pleasure that is obtained by unreasonable and unsuitable cost, must always end in pain.
Johnson, Samuel
Pain
As to the rout that is made about people who are ruined by extravagance, it is no matter to the nation that some individuals suffer. When so much general productive exertion is the consequence of luxury, the nation does not care though there are debtors; nay, they would not care though their creditors were there too.
Johnson, Samuel
Extravagance
They teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master.
Johnson, Samuel
Example
Our tastes greatly alter. The lad does not care for the child s rattle, and the old man does not care for the young man s whore.
Johnson, Samuel
Generations
Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.
Johnson, Samuel
Flattery
Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.
Johnson, Samuel
Flattery
Sir, he throws away his money without thought and without merit. I do not call a tree generous that sheds its fruit at every breeze.
Johnson, Samuel
Generosity
If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone; one should keep his friendships in constant repair.
Johnson, Samuel
Friends and Friendship
Tomorrow is an old deceiver, and his cheat never grows stale.
Johnson, Samuel
Future
I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.
Johnson, Samuel
Friends and Friendship
No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.
Johnson, Samuel
Home
Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.
Johnson, Samuel
Equality
Never, my dear Sir, do you take it into your head that I do not love you; you may settle yourself in full confidence both of my love and my esteem; I love you as a kind man, I value you as a worthy man, and hope in time to reverence you as a man of exemplary piety.
Johnson, Samuel
Friends and Friendship
All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.
Johnson, Samuel
Freedom
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.
Johnson, Samuel
Equality
He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
Johnson, Samuel
Pain
Pain is less subject than pleasure to careless expression.
Johnson, Samuel
Pain
The endearing elegance of female friendship.
Johnson, Samuel
Friends and Friendship
It is better that some should be unhappy than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.
Johnson, Samuel
Equality
In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
Johnson, Samuel
Epitaphs
He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.
Johnson, Samuel
Food and Eating
Parents and children seldom act in concert: each child endeavors to appropriate the esteem or fondness of the parents, and the parents, with yet less temptation, betray each other to their children.
Johnson, Samuel
Family
To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage.
Johnson, Samuel
Friends and Friendship
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Johnson, Samuel
Patriotism
Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.
Johnson, Samuel
Freedom of Speech
Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.
Johnson, Samuel
Melancholy
The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay, or dislike hourly increased by causes too slender for complaint, and too numerous for removal.
Johnson, Samuel
Friends and Friendship
The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.
Johnson, Samuel
Knowledge
He that travels in theory has no inconveniences; he has shade and sunshine at his disposal, and wherever he alights finds tables of plenty and looks of gaiety. These ideas are indulged till the day of departure arrives, the chaise is called, and the progress of happiness begins. A few miles teach him the fallacies of imagination. The road is dusty, the air is sultry, the horses are sluggish. He longs for the time of dinner that he may eat and rest. The inn is crowded, his orders are neglected, and nothing remains but that he devour in haste what the cook has spoiled, and drive on in quest of better entertainment. He finds at night a more commodious house, but the best is always worse than he expected.
Johnson, Samuel
Travel and Tourism
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.
Johnson, Samuel
Inequality
More knowledge may be gained of a man s real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree and ended with his funeral.
Johnson, Samuel
Knowledge
What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of the rest of the company.
Johnson, Samuel
Laughter
In traveling, a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.
Johnson, Samuel
Travel and Tourism
Man is not weak; knowledge is more than equivalent to force.
Johnson, Samuel
Knowledge
Sir, a man may be so much of everything, that he is nothing of anything.
Johnson, Samuel
Identity
Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas.
Johnson, Samuel
Language
The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.
Johnson, Samuel
Travel and Tourism
The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
Johnson, Samuel
Hope
He who praises everybody, praises nobody.
Johnson, Samuel
Praise
I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.
Johnson, Samuel
Language
The real satisfaction which praise can afford, is when what is repeated aloud agrees with the whispers of conscience, by showing us that we have not endeavored to deserve well in vain.
Johnson, Samuel
Praise
Knowledge is of two kinds: We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information about it.
Johnson, Samuel
Knowledge
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.
Johnson, Samuel
Imitation
Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible.
Johnson, Samuel
Music
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.
Johnson, Samuel
Libraries
I hate mankind, for I think of myself as one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.
Johnson, Samuel
Humankind
The true art of memory is the art of attention.
Johnson, Samuel
Memory
No man was ever great by imitation.
Johnson, Samuel
Imitation
Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.
Johnson, Samuel
Hope
I am a great friend to public amusements, for they keep the people from vice.
Johnson, Samuel
Humor
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.
Johnson, Samuel
Marriage
It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination.
Johnson, Samuel
Marriage
No man is much regarded by the rest of the world. He that considers how little he dwells upon the condition of others, will learn how little the attention of others is attracted by himself. While we see multitudes passing before us, of whom perhaps not one appears to deserve our notice or excites our sympathy, we should remember, that we likewise are lost in the same throng, that the eye which happens to glance upon us is turned in a moment on him that follows us, and that the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear is to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and be forgotten.
Johnson, Samuel
Insignificance
Their learning is like bread in a besieged town: every man gets a little, but no man gets a full meal.
Johnson, Samuel
Learning
Worth seeing? Yes; but not worth going to see.
Johnson, Samuel
Travel and Tourism
Marriage is the best state for man in general, and every man is a worst man in proportion to the level he is unfit for marriage.
Johnson, Samuel
Marriage
Turn on the prudent ant thy heedful eyes. Observe her labors, sluggard, and be wise.
Johnson, Samuel
Laziness
Men know that women are an over-match for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.
Johnson, Samuel
Men and Women
There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.
Johnson, Samuel
Marriage
Language is the dress of thought.
Johnson, Samuel
Language
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords: but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged must end in disappointment.
Johnson, Samuel
Hope
It is the only sensual pleasure without vice.
Johnson, Samuel
Music
Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.
Johnson, Samuel
Labor
Labor, if it were not necessary for existence, would be indispensable for the happiness of man.
Johnson, Samuel
Labor
Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.
Johnson, Samuel
Marriage
Knowledge always demands increase; it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but will afterwards always propagate itself.
Johnson, Samuel
Knowledge
It is easy to talk of sitting at home contented, when others are seeing or making shows. But not to have been where it is supposed, and seldom supposed falsely, that all would go if they could; to be able to say nothing when everyone is talking; to have no opinion when everyone is judging; to hear exclamations of rapture without power to depress; to listen to falsehoods without right to contradict, is, after all, a state of temporary inferiority, in which the mind is rather hardened by stubbornness, than supported by fortitude. If the world be worth winning let us enjoy it, if it is to be despised let us despise it by conviction. But the world is not to be despised but as it is compared with something better.
Johnson, Samuel
Involvement
It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them.
Johnson, Samuel
Hunting
To cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.
Johnson, Samuel
Kindness
What is read twice is usually remembered more than what is once written.
Johnson, Samuel
Memory
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
Johnson, Samuel
Integrity
To act from pure benevolence is not possible for finite human beings, Human benevolence is mingled with vanity, interest, or some other motive.
Johnson, Samuel
Kindness
I would advise you Sir, to study algebra, if you are not already an adept in it: your head would be less muddy, and you will leave off tormenting your neighbors about paper and packthread, while we all live together in a world that is bursting with sin and sorrow.
Johnson, Samuel
Mathematics
A Judge may be a farmer; but he is not to geld his own pigs. A Judge may play a little at cards for his own amusement; but he is not to play at marbles, or chuck farthing in the Piazza.
Johnson, Samuel
Judgment and Judges
In a man s letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process. Nothing is inverted, nothing distorted, you see systems in their elements, you discover actions in their motives.
Johnson, Samuel
Letters
Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.
Johnson, Samuel
Imagination
A continual feast of commendation is only to be obtained by merit or by wealth: many are therefore obliged to content themselves with single morsels, and recompense the infrequency of their enjoyment by excess and riot, whenever fortune sets the banquet before them.
Johnson, Samuel
Praise
He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind than the strokes of the oar; and many fold in their passage; while they lie waiting for the gale.
Johnson, Samuel
Life and Living
Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.
Johnson, Samuel
Leisure
A short letter to a distant friend is, in my opinion, an insult like that of a slight bow or cursory salutation -- a proof of unwillingness to do much, even where there is a necessity of doing something.
Johnson, Samuel
Letters
As the Spanish proverb says, He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him. So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.
Johnson, Samuel
Travel and Tourism
I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.
Johnson, Samuel
Kindness
Knowledge is more than equivalent to force.
Johnson, Samuel
Knowledge
Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.
Johnson, Samuel
Perseverance
Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.
Johnson, Samuel
Perspective
Prudence operates on life in the same manner as rule of composition; it produces vigilance rather than elevation; rather prevents loss than procures advantage; and often miscarriages, but seldom reaches either power or honor.
Johnson, Samuel
Prudence
Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
Johnson, Samuel
Pleasure
Prudence is an attitude that keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy.
Johnson, Samuel
Prudence
He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly become corrupt.
Johnson, Samuel
Suspicion
The Irish are a fair people: They never speak well of one another.
Johnson, Samuel
Nationalities and Nationalism
Your manuscript is both good and original; but the parts that are good are not original, and the parts that are original are not good.
Johnson, Samuel
Originality
In all evils which admits a remedy, impatience should be avoided, because it wastes the time and attention in complaints which, if properly applied, might remove the cause.
Johnson, Samuel
Patience
He that thinks he can afford to be negligent is not far from being poor.
Johnson, Samuel
Neglect
If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?
Johnson, Samuel
Pleasure
The majority have no other reason for their opinions than that they are the fashion.
Johnson, Samuel
Opinions
No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
Johnson, Samuel
Pleasure
Many things difficult in design prove easy in performance.
Johnson, Samuel
Planning
Suspicion is most often useless pain.
Johnson, Samuel
Suspicion
If he really thinks there is no distinction between vice and virtue, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.
Johnson, Samuel
Philosophers and Philosophy
This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, slow rises worth by poverty depressed.
Johnson, Samuel
Poverty and The Poor
A wicked fellow is the most pious when he takes to it. He ll beat you all at piety.
Johnson, Samuel
Piety
Piety practiced in solitude, like the flower that blooms in the desert, may give its fragrance to the winds of heaven, and delight those unbodied spirits that survey the works of God and the actions of men; but it bestows no assistance upon earthly beings, and however free from taints of impurity, yet wants the sacred splendor of beneficence.
Johnson, Samuel
Piety
If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.
Johnson, Samuel
Persuasion
Prejudice not being funded on reason cannot be removed by argument.
Johnson, Samuel
Prejudice
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.
Johnson, Samuel
Misers and Misery
I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.
Johnson, Samuel
Portraits
The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England.
Johnson, Samuel
Nationalities and Nationalism
There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.
Johnson, Samuel
Mind
It was his peculiar happiness that he scarcely ever found a stranger whom he did not leave a friend; but it must likewise be added, that he had not often a friend long without obliging him to become a stranger.
Johnson, Samuel
Strangers
Life must be filled up, and the man who is not capable of intellectual pleasures must content himself with such as his senses can afford.
Johnson, Samuel
Plays
Count on it, if a person talks of their misfortune, there is something in it that is not disagreeable to them.
Johnson, Samuel
Misfortunes
Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.
Johnson, Samuel
Pride
I found you essay to be good and original. However, the part that was original was not good and the part that was good was not original.
Johnson, Samuel
Originality
Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.
Johnson, Samuel
Nationalities and Nationalism
Poverty is often concealed in splendor, and often in extravagance. It is the task of many people to conceal their neediness from others. Consequently they support themselves by temporary means, and everyday is lost in contriving for tomorrow.
Johnson, Samuel
Poverty and The Poor
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.
Johnson, Samuel
Poverty and The Poor
It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy and yet unenvied, to be healthy with physic, secure without a guard, and to obtain from the bounty of nature what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of art.
Johnson, Samuel
Poverty and The Poor
When any calamity has been suffered, the first thing to be remembered is how much has been escaped.
Johnson, Samuel
Tragedies
If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind; but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards.
Johnson, Samuel
Pity
A man who is good enough to go to heaven is not good enough to be a clergyman.
Johnson, Samuel
Preachers and Preaching
Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most.
Johnson, Samuel
Preachers and Preaching
Whatever you have spend less.
Johnson, Samuel
Money
Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o clock is a scoundrel.
Johnson, Samuel
Night
Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.
Johnson, Samuel
Poverty and The Poor
The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.
Johnson, Samuel
Metaphysics
Cruel with guilt, and daring with despair, the midnight murderer bursts the faithless bar; invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a dagger in your breast.
Johnson, Samuel
Murder
There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
Johnson, Samuel
Money
Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world. With this sole view do men engage in politics, and their whole conduct proceeds upon it.
Johnson, Samuel
Politicians and Politics
Its proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence.
Johnson, Samuel
Tea
Why, Sir, most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things.
Johnson, Samuel
Reform
Surely life, if it be not long, is tedious, since we are forced to call in the assistance of so many trifles to rid us of our time, of that time which never can return.
Johnson, Samuel
Recreation
Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off.
Johnson, Samuel
Secrets
We love to overlook the boundaries which we do not wish to pass.
Johnson, Samuel
Temptation
To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.
Johnson, Samuel
Secrets
It is better to live rich, than to die rich.
Johnson, Samuel
Riches
Ah! Sir, a boy s being flogged is not so severe as a man s having the hiss of the world against him.
Johnson, Samuel
Public Opinion
The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.
Johnson, Samuel
Secrets
Solitude is dangerous to reason, without being favorable to virtue. Remember that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad.
Johnson, Samuel
Solitude
If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.
Johnson, Samuel
Solitude
If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.
Johnson, Samuel
Slander
Attention and respect give pleasure, however late, or however useless. But they are not useless, when they are late, it is reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind.
Johnson, Samuel
Respectability
Revenge is the act of passion, vengeance is an act of justice.
Johnson, Samuel
Revenge
Security will produce danger.
Johnson, Samuel
Security
Don t think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drive into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.
Johnson, Samuel
Retirement
That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own esteem.
Johnson, Samuel
Self-esteem
Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim; and when you are calculating, calculate.
Johnson, Samuel
Sincerity
When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.
Johnson, Samuel
Sea
Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled.
Johnson, Samuel
Respectability
Self-love is often rather arrogant than blind; it does not hide our faults from ourselves, but persuades us that they escape the notice of others.
Johnson, Samuel
Self-love
One cause, which is not always observed, of the insufficiency of riches, is that they very seldom make their owner rich.
Johnson, Samuel
Riches
The blaze of reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket; a very few names may be considered as perpetual lamps that shine unconsumed.
Johnson, Samuel
Reputation
And then, Sir, there is this consideration, that if the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up, and claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system.
Johnson, Samuel
Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
Johnson, Samuel
Understanding
Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree. We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
Johnson, Samuel
Trust
The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the praise of servants.
Johnson, Samuel
Servants
The mind is refrigerated by interruption; the thoughts are diverted from the principle subject; the reader is weary, he suspects not why; and at last throws away the book, which he has too diligently studied.
Johnson, Samuel
Students
When speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.
Johnson, Samuel
Speculation
Round numbers are always false.
Johnson, Samuel
Statistics
Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise and motion.
Johnson, Samuel
Sorrow
Sorrow is the rust of the soul and activity will cleanse and brighten it.
Johnson, Samuel
Sorrow
There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow, but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved.
Johnson, Samuel
Sorrow
Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.
Johnson, Samuel
Quotations
He may justly be numbered among the benefactors of mankind, who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may early be impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to occur habitually to the mind.
Johnson, Samuel
Proverbs
No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it. There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government.
Johnson, Samuel
Tyranny
To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.
Johnson, Samuel
Unemployment
The drama s laws, the drama s patrons give, for we that live to please, must please to live.
Johnson, Samuel
Theater
He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.
Johnson, Samuel
Quotations
Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.
Johnson, Samuel
Skepticism
Life will not bear refinement. You must do as other people do.
Johnson, Samuel
Simplicity
Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.
Johnson, Samuel
Questions
If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.
Johnson, Samuel
Recreation
There mark what ills the scholar s life assail, toil, envy, want, and patron.
Johnson, Samuel
Scholars and Scholarship
I am not able to instruct you. I can only tell that I have chosen wrong. I have passed my time in study without experience; in the attainment of sciences which can, for the most part, be but remotely useful to mankind. I have purchased knowledge at the expense of all the common comforts of life: I have missed the endearing elegance of female friendship, and the happy commerce of domestic tenderness.
Johnson, Samuel
Scholars and Scholarship
Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.
Johnson, Samuel
Quotations
A mere literary man is a dull man; a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man; but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.
Johnson, Samuel
Respectability
It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in want of money. It is clear, they have not value for what they spend.
Johnson, Samuel
Riches
Some people wave their dogmatic thinking until their own reason is entangled.
Johnson, Samuel
Rhetoric
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.
Johnson, Samuel
Things and Little Things
The world will never be long without some good reason to hate the unhappy; their real faults are immediately detected, and if those are not sufficient to sink them into infamy, an additional weight of calumny will be super added.
Johnson, Samuel
Unhappiness
What ever the motive for the insult, it is always best to overlook it; for folly doesn t deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect.
Johnson, Samuel
Revenge
The trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. But as every art ought to be exercised in due subordination to the public good, I cannot but propose it as a moral question to these masters of the public ear, whether they do not sometimes play too wantonly with our passions.
Johnson, Samuel
Advertising
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
Johnson, Samuel
Effort