Samuel Johnson - Man Quotes

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

Samuel Johnson
He was a vicious man, but very kind to me. If you call a dog Hervey, I shall love him.
Of his former patron Henry Hervey

Samuel Johnson
As the mind must govern the hands, so in every society the man of intelligence must direct the man of labor.

Samuel Johnson
I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him.

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

Samuel Johnson
Every one should consider himself as intrusted not only with his own conduct, but with that of others; and as accountable, not only for the duties which he neglects, or the crimes that he commits, but for that negligence and irregularity which he may encourage or inculcate. Every man, in whatever station, has, or endeavours to have his followers, admirers, and imitators, and has therefore the influence of his example to watch with care.

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
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
If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.

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

Samuel Johnson
Exercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we are decreed; but while the soul and body continue united, it can make the association pleasing, and give probable hopes that they shall be disciplined by an easy separation...to die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish is generally his folly.

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

Samuel Johnson
Never, my dear Sir, do you take it into your head that I do not love you; you may settle yourself in full confidence both of my love and my esteem; I love you as a kind man, I value you as a worthy man, and hope in time to reverence you as a man of exemplary piety.

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

Samuel Johnson
If a man begins to read in the middle of a book, and feels an inclination to go on, let him not quit it to go to the beginning. He may perhaps not feel again the inclination.

Samuel Johnson
Every man wishes to be wise, and they who cannot be wise are almost always cunning.

Samuel Johnson
Wit will never make a man rich, but there are places where riches will always make a wit.

Samuel Johnson
It is not often that any man can have so much knowledge of another, as is necessary to make instruction useful.

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

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
Never speak of a man in his own presence. It is always indelicate, and may be offensive.

Samuel Johnson
Of Oliver Goldsmith:
No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.

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

Samuel Johnson
Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.

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
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
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

Samuel Johnson
There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.

Samuel Johnson