Samuel Johnson - Man Quotes

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There is nothing against which an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse.

Samuel Johnson
If the man who turnips cries,
Cry not when his father dies,
'Tis a proof that he had rather
Have a turnip than his father.

Samuel Johnson
More knowledge may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree and ended with his funeral.

Samuel Johnson
No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance.

Samuel Johnson
Every man is of importance to himself, and, therefore, in his own opinion, to others; and, supposing the world already acquainted with his pleasures and his pains, is perhaps the first to publish injuries or misfortunes which had never been known unless related by himself, and at which those that hear them will only laugh, for no man sympathises with the sorrows of vanity.

Samuel Johnson
This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

Samuel Johnson
Surely, it is much easier to respect a man who has always had respect, than to respect a man who we know was last year no better than ourselves, and will be no better next year.

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
Many a man is mad in certain instances, and goes through life without having it perceived. For example, a madness has seized a person of supposing himself obliged literally to pray continually; had the madness turned the opposite way, and the person thought it a crime ever to pray, it might not improbably have continued unobserved.

Samuel Johnson
No man should attempt to teach others what he has never learned himself

Samuel Johnson
I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it

Samuel Johnson
No man can enjoy happiness without thinking that he enjoys it.

Samuel Johnson
Every man's affairs, however little, are important to himself.

Samuel Johnson
Little would be wanting to the happiness of life, if every man could conform to the right as soon as he was shown it.

Samuel Johnson
Every man has something to do which he neglects, every man has faults to conquer which he delays to combat.

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

Samuel Johnson
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.

Samuel Johnson
A man may be so much of every thing, that he is nothing of any thing.

Samuel Johnson
A lawyer has no business with the justice or injustice of the cause which he undertakes, unless his client asks his opinion, and then he is bound to give it honestly. The justice or injustice of the cause is to be decided by the judge. Consider, sir; what is the purpose of courts of justice? It is, that every man may have his cause fairly tried, by men appointed to try causes. A lawyer is not to tell what he knows to be a lie: he is not to produce what he knows to be a false deed; but he is not to usurp the province of the jury and of the judge, and determine what shall be the effect of evidence — what shall be the result of legal argument.

Samuel Johnson
Scarce any man becomes eminently disagreeable but by a departure from his real character, and an attempt at something for which nature or education has left him unqualified.

Samuel Johnson
Every man prefers virtue, when there is not some strong incitement to transgress its precepts.

Samuel Johnson
A man sometimes starts up a patriot, only by disseminating discontent, and propagating reports of secret influence, of dangerous counsels, of violated rights, and encroaching usurpation. This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend publick happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace. Few errours and few faults of government, can justify an appeal to the rabble; who ought not to judge of what they cannot understand, and whose opinions are not propagated by reason, but caught by contagion. The fallaciousness of this note of patriotism is particularly apparent, when the clamour continues after the evil is past.

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
Sir, I have no objection to a man's drinking wine, if he can do it in moderation. I found myself apt to go to excess in it, and therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it. Every man is to judge for himself, according to the effects which he experiences.

Samuel Johnson
No man can have much kindness for him by whom he does not believe himself esteemed, and nothing so evidently proves esteem as imitation.

Samuel Johnson
Piety is the only proper and adequate relief of decaying man. He that grows old without religions hopes, as he declines into imbecility, and feels pains and sorrows incessantly crowding upon him, falls into a gulf of bottomless misery, in which every reflection must plunge him deeper and deeper.

Samuel Johnson
A thousand years may elapse before there shall appear another man with a power of versification equal to that of Pope.

Samuel Johnson
People seldom read a book which is given to them; and few are given. The way to spread a work is to sell it at a low price. No man will send to buy a thing that costs even sixpence without an intention to read it.

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

Samuel Johnson
In a man's letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process. Nothing is inverted, nothing distorted, you see systems in their elements, you discover actions in their motives.

Samuel Johnson