Samuel Johnson Quotes

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Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such,
We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much;
Who, born for the Universe, narrowed his mind,
And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.

Samuel Johnson
When the hoary Sage replied,
"Come, my lad, and drink some beer."

Samuel Johnson
A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him. A man when he gets into a higher sphere, into other habits of life, cannot keep up all his former connections. Then, Sir, those who knew him formerly upon a level with themselves, may think that they ought still to be treated as on a level, which cannot be; and an acquaintance in a former situation may bring out things which it would be very disagreeable to have mentioned before higher company, though, perhaps, everybody knows of them.

Samuel Johnson
There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed.

Samuel Johnson
A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.

Samuel Johnson
LEXICOGRAPHER — A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.

Samuel Johnson
Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim; and when you are calculating, calculate.

Samuel Johnson
Liberty is, to the lowest rank of every nation, little more than the choice of working or starving.

Samuel Johnson
Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.

Samuel Johnson
The trade of advertising is now so near to perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. But as every art ought to be exercized in due subordination to the public good, I cannot but propose it as a moral question to these masters of the public ear, whether they do not sometimes play too wantonly with our passions.

Samuel Johnson
Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness had before concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with cruelty.

Samuel Johnson
Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any high degree; only about as much as is used in the lower kinds of poetry.

Samuel Johnson
These are the men who, without virtue, labour, or hazard, are growing rich, as their country is impoverished; they rejoice, when obstinacy or ambition adds another year to slaughter and devastation; and laugh, from their desks, at bravery and science, while they are adding figure to figure, and cipher to cipher, hoping for a new contract from a new armament, and computing the profits of a siege or tempest.

Samuel Johnson
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.

Samuel Johnson
Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.

Samuel Johnson
A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity.

Samuel Johnson
To tell of disappointment and misery, to thicken the darkness of futurity, and perplex the labyrinth of uncertainty, has been always a delicious employment of the poets

Samuel Johnson
That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm, quiet interchange of sentiments....

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

Samuel Johnson
This mournful truth is ev'rywhere confessed —
Slow rises worth, by poverty depressed.

Samuel Johnson
Johnson observed, that "he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney."

Samuel Johnson
A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.

Samuel Johnson
Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger at his death.

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

Samuel Johnson
We suffer equal pain from the pertinacious adhesion of unwelcome images, as from the evanescence of those which are pleasing and useful.

Samuel Johnson
They make a rout about universal liberty, without considering that all that is to be valued, or indeed can be enjoyed by individuals, is private liberty.

Samuel Johnson
I never take a nap after dinner but when I have had a bad night; and then the nap takes me.

Samuel Johnson
They teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master.
Of the Letters of Lord Chesterfield

Samuel Johnson
Here's to the next insurrection of the negroes in the West Indies.

Samuel Johnson
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.

Samuel Johnson