Samuel Johnson Quotes

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.
Samuel Johnson

It is better to live rich than to die rich.
Samuel Johnson

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
Samuel Johnson

It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.
Samuel Johnson

It is generally agreed, that few men are made better by affluence or exaltation.
Samuel Johnson

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.
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.
Samuel Johnson

It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.
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.
Samuel Johnson

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
Samuel Johnson

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
Samuel Johnson

Language is the dress of thought.
Samuel Johnson

Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.
Samuel Johnson

Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.
Samuel Johnson

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.
Samuel Johnson

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.
Samuel Johnson

Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
Samuel Johnson

Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.
Samuel Johnson

Love is only one of many passions.
Samuel Johnson

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

Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.
Samuel Johnson

Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.
Samuel Johnson

Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.
Samuel Johnson

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
Samuel Johnson

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

No man was ever great by imitation.
Samuel Johnson

No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.
Samuel Johnson

No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.
Samuel Johnson

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

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

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

Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.
Samuel Johnson

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
Samuel Johnson

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
Samuel Johnson

Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.
Samuel Johnson

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.
Samuel Johnson

Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
Samuel Johnson

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

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Samuel Johnson

Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.
Samuel Johnson

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.
Samuel Johnson

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.
Samuel Johnson

Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.
Samuel Johnson

Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.
Samuel Johnson

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

Reproof on her lips, but a smile in her eyes.
Samuel Johnson

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.
Samuel Johnson

Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.
Samuel Johnson

Secure, whate'er he gives, he gives the best.
Samuel Johnson

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
Samuel Johnson

Sings. Hope in every sphere of life is a privilege that attaches to action. No action, no hope.
Samuel Johnson

Sir, a man may be so much of everything, that he is nothing of anything.
Samuel Johnson

Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.
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.
Samuel Johnson

So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.
Samuel Johnson

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

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

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.
Samuel Johnson

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.
Samuel Johnson

That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.
Samuel Johnson

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

The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.
Samuel Johnson

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.
Samuel Johnson

The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.
Samuel Johnson

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