Samuel Johnson Quotes

A Scotchman must be a very sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth.

There are occasions on which it is noble to dare to stand alone. To be pious among infidels, to be disinterested in a time of general venality, to lead a life of virtue and reason in the midst of sensualists, is a proof of a mind intent on nobler things than the praise or blame of men, of a soul fixed in the contemplation of the highest good, and superiour to the tyranny of custom and example.

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.

People have now a-days got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do as much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken.

Every government is perpetually degenerating towards corruption, from which it must be rescued at certain periods by the resuscitation of its first principles, and the re-establishment of its original constitution.

Whoever envies another confesses his superiority.

Their origin is commonly unknown; for the practice often continues when the cause has ceased, and concerning superstitious ceremonies it is in vain to conjecture; for what reason did not dictate, reason cannot explain.

Thought is always troublesome to him who lives without his own approbation.

Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.

Forgetfulness is necessary to remembrance. Ideas are retained by renovation of that impression which time is always wearing away,and which new images are striving to obliterate. If useless thoughts could be expelled from the mind, all the valuable parts of our knowledge would more frequently recur, and every recurrence would reinstate them in their former place.

It is much easier not to write like a man than to write like a woman.

No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had

As pride sometimes is hid under humility, idleness if often covered by turbulence and hurry.

A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.

He who praises everybody, praises nobody.

To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise... Let him take a course of chemistry, or a course of rope-dance, or a course of any thing to which he is inclined at the time. Let him contrive to have as many retreats for his mind as he can, as many things to which it can fly from itself.

The wickedness of a loose or profane author is more atrocious than that of a giddy libertine or drunken ravisher, not only because it extends its effects wider, as a pestilence that taints the air is more destructive than poison infused in a draught, but because it is committed with cool deliberation.

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.

I also admit, that there are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits which are not good till they are rotten.

Beauty, without kindness, dies unenjoyed and undelighting.

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

Nothing has tended more to retard the advancement of science than the disposition in vulgar minds to vilify what they cannot comprehend.

Pain and disease awaken us to convictions which are necessary to our moral condition.

We owe to memory not only the increase of our knowledge, and our progress in rational inquiries, but many other intellectual pleasures

It is not the desire of new acquisitions, but the glory of conquests, that fires the soldier's breast; as indeed the town is seldom worth much, when it has suffered the devastations of a siege.

The equity of Providence has balanced peculiar sufferings with peculiar enjoyments.

The common people do not accurately adapt their thoughts to objects; nor, secondly, do they accurately adapt their words to their thoughts; they do not mean to lie; but, taking no pains to be exact, they give you very false accounts. A great part of their language is proverbial; if anything rocks at all, they say it rocks like a cradle; and in this way they go on.

This is my history; like all other histories, a narrative of misery.

For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill.

There is no idleness, by which we are so easily seduced, as that which dignifies itself by the appearance of business, and by making the loiterer imagine that he has something to do which must not be neglected, keeps him in perpetual agitation, and hurries him rapidly from place to place.

Round numbers are always false.

The most Heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together.

Misery and shame are nearly allied.

When female minds are embittered by age or solitude, their malignity is generally exerted in a rigorous and spiteful superintendence of domestic trifles.

Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.

We consider ourselves as defective in memory, either because we remember less than we desire, or less than we suppose others to remember.

Advice, as it always gives a temporary appearance of superiority, can never be very grateful, even when it is most necessary or most judicious; but, for the same reason, every one is eager to instruct his neighbors.

Youth enters the world with very happy prejudices in her own favour.

Curiosity is the thirst of the soul.

In most ages many countries have had part of their inhabitants in a state of slavery; yet it may be doubted whether slavery can ever be supposed the natural condition of man. It is impossible not to conceive that men in their original state were equal; and very difficult to imagine how one would be subjected to another but by violent compulsion. An individual may, indeed, forfeit his liberty by a crime; but he cannot by that crime forfeit the liberty of his children.

There may be other reasons for a man's not speaking in publick than want of resolution: he may have nothing to say.

The faults of a man loved or honoured sometimes steal secretly and imperceptibly upon the wise and virtuous, but by injudicious fondness or thoughtless vanity are adopted with design.

A vow is a snare for sin

Whatever is formed for long duration arrives slowly to its maturity.

A soldier's time is passed in distress and danger, or in idleness and corruption.

Large offers and sturdy rejections are among the most common topics of falsehood.

Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.