Samuel Johnson Quotes - Page 4

(Adversity is) the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself being especially free from admirers then.

Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken, themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.

While an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance, and when he is dead we rate them by his best.

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.

Nothing at all will be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

Every man who attacks my belief diminishes in some degree my confidence in it and therefore makes me uneasy and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy.

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

One of the disadvantages of wine is that is makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

Men only become friends by community of pleasures.

The Church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another; but there should be a stated day for commemorating the birth of our Saviour, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected.

There is no problem the mind of man can set that the mind of man cannot solve.

The drama's laws the drama's patrons give. For we that live to please must please to live.

I live in the crowds of jollity not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.

I can discover within me no power of perception which is not glutted with its proper pleasure, yet I do not feel myself delighted. Man has surely some latent sense for which this place affords no gratification, or he has some desires distinct from sense which must be satisfied before he can be happy.

Our minds, like our bodies, are in continual flux; something is hourly lost, and something acquired.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. When we enquire into any subject, the first thing we have to do is to know what books have treated of it. This leads us to look at catalogues, and at the backs of books in libraries.

Your manuscript is both good and original but the parts that are good are not original and the parts that are original are not good.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.

There is less flogging in our great schools than formerly but then less is learned there so that what the boys get at one end they lose at the other.

The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove.

The true art of memory, is the art of attention

There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it.

Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young.

That friendship may be at once fond and lasting there must not only be equal virtue on each part but virtue of the same kind not only the same end must be proposed but the same means must be approved by both.

To be of no Church is dangerous.

No mind is much employed upon the present recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments.

The composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelting to myrtles and to roses; filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless diversity.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

Hell is paved with good intentions.

As the Spanish proverb says "He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him." So it is in traveling: a man must carry knowledge with him if he would bring home knowledge.

In all pleasure hope is a considerable part.

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.

Pleasure, in itself harmless, may become mischievous, by endearing to us a state which we know to be transient and probatory, and withdrawing our thoughts from that of which every hour brings us nearer to the beginning, and of which no length of time will bring us to the end. Mortification is not virtuous in itself, nor has any other use, but that it disengages us from the allurements of sense. In the state of future perfection, to which we all aspire, there will be pleasure without danger, and security without restraint.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.

There is certainly no greater happiness than to be able to look back on a life usefully and virtuously employed to trace our own progress in existence by such tokens as excite neither shame nor sorrow.

Marriage has many pains but celibacy has no pleasures.

We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?

No man ever yet became great by imitation.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

When an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance and when he is dead we rate them by his best.

Silence propagates itself and the longer talk has been suspended the more difficult it is to find anything to say.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

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

None are happy but by the anticipation of change. The change itself is nothing when we have made it the next wish is to change again.

The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth.

The life of a conscientious clergyman is not easy. I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain. I would rather have chancery suits upon my hands than the cure of souls.

Is not a patron one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help?

Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.

Nothing has more retarded the advancement of learning than the disposition of vulgar minds to ridicule and vilify what they cannot comprehend.

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth and every other man has a right to knock him down for it.

NE'TWORK: Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.......RETI'CULATED: Made of network; formed with interstitial vacuities.

Dictionaries are like watches. The worst is better than none at all and even the best cannot be expected to run quite true.

Example is more efficacious than precept.

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 public happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace.

Moderation is commonly firm and firmness is commonly successful.

Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance.

Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.

Is there such depravity in man as that he should injure another without benefit to himself?