Samuel Johnson Quotes

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern… No, Sir; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

What is easy is seldom excellent.

I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.

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.

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.

There are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits that are not good until they are rotten.

Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon; of loud noise, but little danger.

A man will turn over half a library to make one book.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

Wine gives a man nothing… it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.

When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.

Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.

All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.

What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.

From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life.

The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity… The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.

You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not – silence is the sharper sword.

The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.

At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.

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.

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.

Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.

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.

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.

There are charms made only for distant admiration.

There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.

No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.

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

When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation.

You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

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.

Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.

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.

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.

Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.

The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.

Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.

It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.

Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

Love is only one of many passions.

Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.

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

Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.

He that overvalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them.

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.

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