Samuel Johnson - Man Quotes

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

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

Samuel Johnson
If a man does not make new acquaintance as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, Sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.

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
Every man that has felt pain knows how little all other comforts can gladden him to whom health is denied. Yet who is there does not sometimes hazard it for the enjoyment of an hour?

Samuel Johnson
A man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good practice.

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 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
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
Man's chief merit consists in resisting the impulses of his nature.

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

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
As all error is meanness, it is incumbent on every man who consults his own dignity, to retract it as soon as he discovers it.

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

Samuel Johnson
The lust of gold succeeds the rage of conquest; The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless! The last corruption of degenerate man.

Samuel Johnson
The prospect of penury in age is so gloomy and terrifying that every man who looks before him must resolve to avoid it; and it must be avoided generally by the science of sparing.

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

Samuel Johnson
Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities, superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world; and, whatever apparent disadvantages he may suffer in the comparison with others, he has some invisible distinctions, some latent reserve of excellence, which he throws into the balance, and by which he generally fancies that it is turned in his favour.

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
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
Every man speaks and writes with intent to be understood; and it can seldom happen but he that understands himself might convey his notions to another, if, content to be understood, he did not seek to be admired.

Samuel Johnson
In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.

Samuel Johnson
Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.

Samuel Johnson
The mischief of flattery is, not that it persuades any man that he is what he is not, but that it suppresses the influence of honest ambition, by raising an opinion that honour may be gained without the toil of merit.

Samuel Johnson
The man who feels himself ignorant should, at least, be modest.

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

Samuel Johnson