Samuel Johnson - Pleasure Quotes

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To purchase Heaven has gold the power?
Can gold remove the mortal hour?
In life can love be bought with gold?
Are friendship's pleasures to be sold?
No--all that's worth a wish--a thought,
Fair virtue gives unbribed, unbought.
Cease then on trash thy hopes to bind,
Let nobler views engage thy mind.

Samuel Johnson
Men who could willingly resign the luxuries and sensual pleasures of a large fortune cannot consent to live without the grandeur and the homage.

Samuel Johnson
Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

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
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
"I fly from pleasure," said the prince, "because pleasure has ceased to please; I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others."

Samuel Johnson
His [David Garrick's] death has eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.

Samuel Johnson
We are all prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure.

Samuel Johnson
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

Samuel Johnson
So scanty is our present allowance of happiness that in many situations life could scarcely be supported if hope were not allowed to relieve the present hour by pleasures borrowed from the future.

Samuel Johnson
Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason.

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
Ease, a neutral state between pain and pleasure... if it is not rising into pleasure will be falling towards pain.

Samuel Johnson
Attention and respect give pleasure, however late, or however useless. But they are not useless, when they are late, it is reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind.

Samuel Johnson
Of music Dr Johnson used to say that it was the only sensual pleasure without vice.

Samuel Johnson
The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

Samuel Johnson
The gratification of curiosity rather frees us from uneasiness than confers pleasure; we are more pained by ignorance, than delighted by instruction. Curiosity is the thirst of the soul; it inflames and torments us, and makes us taste every thing with joy, however otherwise insipid, by which it may be quenched.

Samuel Johnson
Life consists not of a series of illustrious actions or elegant enjoyments. The greater part of our time passes in compliance with necessities, in the performance of daily duties, in the removal of small inconveniences, in the procurement of petty pleasures; and we are well or ill at ease, as the main stream of life glides on smoothly, or is ruffled by small obstacles and frequent interruption.

Samuel Johnson
Whatever professes to benefit by pleasing must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something sudden and unexpected; that which elevates must always surprise.

Samuel Johnson
Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

Samuel Johnson
The friendship which is to be practised or expected by common mortals, must take its rise from mutual pleasure, and must end when the power ceases of delighting each other.

Samuel Johnson
Such is the pleasure of projecting that many content themselves with a succession of visionary schemes, and wear out their allotted time in the calm amusement of contriving what they never attempt or hope to execute.

Samuel Johnson
What is read with delight is commonly retained, because pleasure always secures attention; but the books which are consulted by occasional necessity, and perused with impatience, seldom leave any traces on the mind.

Samuel Johnson
Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.

Samuel Johnson
We owe to memory not only the increase of our knowledge, and our progress in rational inquiries, but many other intellectual pleasures

Samuel Johnson
Knowledge is praised and desired by multitudes whom her charms could never rouse from the couch of sloth; whom the faintest invitation of pleasure draws away from their studies; to whom any other method of wearing the day is more eligible than the use of books, and who are more easily engaged by any conversation than such as may rectify their notions or enlarge their comprehension.

Samuel Johnson
It very seldom happens to a man that his business is his pleasure.

Samuel Johnson
Friendship may well deserve the sacrifice of pleasure, though not of conscience.

Samuel Johnson
No man reads a book of science from pure inclination. The books that we do read with pleasure are light compositions, which contain a quick succession of events.

Samuel Johnson
The public pleasures of far the greater part of mankind are counterfeit.

Samuel Johnson