Samuel Johnson Quotes

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Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.

Samuel Johnson
Every old man complains of the growing depravity of the world, of the petulance and insolence of the rising generation.

Samuel Johnson
It was his peculiar happiness that he scarcely ever found a stranger whom he did not leave a friend; but it must likewise be added, that he had not often a friend long without obliging him to become a stranger.

Samuel Johnson
The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.

Samuel Johnson
There are minds so impatient of inferiority, that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.

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

Samuel Johnson
It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.

Samuel Johnson
Why, sir, if you were to read Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself. But you must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment.

Samuel Johnson
I'll come no more behind your scenes, David [Garrick]; for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities.

Samuel Johnson
Long customs are not easily broken; he that attempts to change the course of his own life very often labors in vain; and how shall we do that for others, which we are seldom able to do for ourselves.

Samuel Johnson
Those who are in the power of evil habits must conquer them as they can; and conquered they must be, or neither wisdom nor happiness can be attained: but those who are not yet subject to their influence may, by timely caution, preserve their freedom;

Samuel Johnson
NETWORK — Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.

Samuel Johnson
Few men survey themselves with so much severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favor.

Samuel Johnson
Claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men; but he who aspires to be a hero (smiling) must drink brandy.

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

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

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
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
Example is always more efficacious than precept.

Samuel Johnson
I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.

Samuel Johnson
A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see.

Samuel Johnson
There is reason to suspect, that the distinctions of mankind have more show than value, when it is found that all agree to be weary alike of pleasures and of cares; that the powerful and the weak, the celebrated and obscure, join in one common wish, and implore from nature's hand the nectar of oblivion.

Samuel Johnson
No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion, than the negligence with which men overlook their own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they pardon them, however frequently repeated.

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

Samuel Johnson
I have already enjoyed too much; give me something to desire.

Samuel Johnson
In the description of night in Macbeth, the beetle and the bat detract from the general idea of darkness,—inspissated gloom.

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

Samuel Johnson
A transition from an author's book to his conversation, is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke.

Samuel Johnson
We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

Samuel Johnson
He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.

Samuel Johnson