Samuel Johnson Quotes

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But though it cannot be reasonable not to gain happiness for fear of losing it, yet it must be confessed, that in proportion to the pleasure of possession, will be for some time our sorrow for the loss.

Samuel Johnson
Few of those who fill the world with books, have any pretensions to the hope either of pleasing or instructing. They have often no other task than to lay two books before them, out of which they compile a third, without any new material of their own, and with very little application of judgment to those which former authors have supplied.

Samuel Johnson
He that has once concluded it lawful to resist power, when it wants merit, will soon find a want of merit, to justify his resistance to power.

Samuel Johnson
To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has kept ages busy in the discussion of useless questions, and the pride of power has destroyed armies, to gain or to keep unprofitable possessions.

Samuel Johnson
Perhaps man is the only being that can properly be called idle.

Samuel Johnson
I wish there were some cure, like the lover's leap, for all heads of which some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession.

Samuel Johnson
Waste cannot be accurately told, though we are sensible how destructive it is. Economy, on the one hand, by which a certain income is made to maintain a man genteelly; and waste, on the other, by which on the same income another man lives shabbily, cannot be defined. It is a very nice thing; as one man wears his coat out much sooner than another, we cannot tell how.

Samuel Johnson
The labor of rising from the ground will be great,... but as we mount higher, the earth's attraction, and the body's gravity, will be gradually diminished till we arrive at a region where the man will float in the air without any tendency to fall.

Samuel Johnson
To be prejudiced is always to be weak; yet there are prejudices so near to laudable that they have been often praised and are always pardoned.

Samuel Johnson
To purchase Heaven has gold the power?
Can gold remove the mortal hour?
In life can love be bought with gold?
Are friendship's pleasures to be sold?
No--all that's worth a wish--a thought,
Fair virtue gives unbribed, unbought.
Cease then on trash thy hopes to bind,
Let nobler views engage thy mind.

Samuel Johnson
Every man speaks and writes with intent to be understood; and it can seldom happen but he that understands himself might convey his notions to another, if, content to be understood, he did not seek to be admired.

Samuel Johnson
If a man is in doubt whether it would be better for him to expose himself to martyrdom or not, he should not do it. He must be convinced that he has a delegation from heaven.

Samuel Johnson
An old friend never can be found, and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.

Samuel Johnson
Irresolution and mutability are often the faults of men whose views are wide, and whose imagination is vigorous and excursive.

Samuel Johnson
The mental disease of the present generation is impatience of study, contempt of the great masters of ancient wisdom, and a disposition to rely wholly upon unassisted genius and natural sagacity.

Samuel Johnson
Politeness is one of those advantages which we never estimate rightly but by the inconvenience of its loss.

Samuel Johnson
We may take Fancy for a companion, but must follow Reason as our guide.

Samuel Johnson
When the original is well chosen and judiciously copied, the imitator often arrives at excellence which he could never have attained without direction; for few are formed with abilities to discover new possibilities of excellence, and to distinguish themselves by means never tried before.

Samuel Johnson
The relief of enemies has a tendency to unite mankind in fraternal affection.

Samuel Johnson
They who look but little into futurity, have, perhaps, the quickest sensation of the present.

Samuel Johnson
Politeness is fictitious benevolence. Depend upon it, the want of it never fails to produce something disagreeable to one or other.

Samuel Johnson
The time will come to every human being when it must be known how well he can bear to die.

Samuel Johnson
The mere power of saving what is already in our hands must be of easy acquisition to every mind; and as the example of Lord Bacon may show that the highest intellect cannot safely neglect it, a thousand instances every day prove that the humblest may practise it with success.

Samuel Johnson
Let us be quick to repent of injuries while repentance may not be a barren anguish.

Samuel Johnson
A voyage to the moon, however romantick and absurd the scheme may now appear, since the properties of air have been better understood, seemed highly probable to many of the aspiring wits in the last century

Samuel Johnson
All knowledge is of itself of some value. There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable, that I would not rather know it than not. In the same manner, all power, of whatever sort, is of itself desirable. A man would not submit to learn to hem a ruffle, of his wife, or his wife's maid; but if a mere wish could attain it, he would rather wish to be able to hem a ruffle.

Samuel Johnson
No man is without some quality, by the due application of which he might deserve well of the world; and whoever he be that has but little in his power should be in haste to do that little, lest he be confounded with him that can do nothing.

Samuel Johnson
Ah! Sir, a boy's being flogged is not so severe as a man's having the hiss of the world against him.

Samuel Johnson
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.

Samuel Johnson
When first the college rolls receive his name,
The young enthusiast quilts his ease for fame;
Through all his veins the fever of renown
Burns from the strong contagion of the gown

Samuel Johnson