Samuel Johnson Quotes

1,224 Sourced Quotes

The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth.

Samuel Johnson
Idleness is often covered by turbulence and hurry. He that neglects his known duty and real employment naturally endeavours to crowd his mind with something that may bar out the remembrance of his own folly, and does any thing but what he ought to do with eager diligence, that he may keep himself in his own favour.

Samuel Johnson
Such is the constitution of man that labour may be styled its own reward; nor will any external incitements be requisite, if it be considered how much happiness is gained, and how much misery escaped, by frequent and violent agitation of the body.

Samuel Johnson
I am afraid he has not been in the inside of a church for many years; but he never passes a church without pulling off his hat. This shows that he has good principles.
Of Dr John Campbell

Samuel Johnson
When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

Samuel Johnson
We could not have had a better dinner had there been a Synod of Cooks.

Samuel Johnson
Curiosity, like all other desires, produces pain as well as pleasure.

Samuel Johnson
The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.

Samuel Johnson
Long-expected one-and-twenty,
Ling'ring year, at length is flown;
Pride and pleasure, pomp and plenty,
Great [Sir John], are now your own.

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

Samuel Johnson
This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.

Samuel Johnson
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.

Samuel Johnson
I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him; you have no business with consequences, you are to tell the truth.

Samuel Johnson
The friendship which is to be practised or expected by common mortals, must take its rise from mutual pleasure, and must end when the power ceases of delighting each other.

Samuel Johnson
We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know, because they have never deceived us.

Samuel Johnson
A man might write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it.

Samuel Johnson
Let him that desires to see others happy, make haste to give while his gift can be enjoyed, and remember that every moment of delay takes away something from the value of his benefaction.

Samuel Johnson
Of many, imagined blessings it may be doubted whether he that wants or possesses them had more reason to be satisfied with his lot.

Samuel Johnson
When speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.

Samuel Johnson
Faction seldom leaves a man honest, however it might find him.

Samuel Johnson
I consider this mighty structure as a monument of the insufficiency of human enjoyments.
Of the Pyramids

Samuel Johnson
He is no wise man who will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.

Samuel Johnson
John Wesley's conversation is good, but he is never at leisure. He is always obliged to go at a certain hour. This is very disagreeable to a man who loves to fold his legs and have out his talk, as I do.

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

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
I have, all my life long, been lying till noon; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good.

Samuel Johnson
Philosophers there are who try to make themselves believe that this life is happy; but they believe it only while they are saying it, and never yet produced conviction in a single mind.

Samuel Johnson
Life is barren enough surely with all her trappings; let us be therefore cautious of how we strip her.

Samuel Johnson
Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

Samuel Johnson
Those writers who lay on the watch for novelty, could have little hope of greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former observation.

Samuel Johnson