Top 111 Samuel Johnson Quotes

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.

Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.

To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.

Words are but the signs of ideas.

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.

A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.

All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.

Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.

What is easy is seldom excellent.

When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.

The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty.

To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.

There are charms made only for distant admiration.

It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity… The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.

Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.

My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.

No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.

So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not – silence is the sharper sword.

Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.

The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.

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

To love one that is great, is almost to be great one’s self.

The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.

It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.

When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

Love is only one of many passions.

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.

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

No man was ever great by imitation.

To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.

A man will turn over half a library to make one book.

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

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

The happiest part of a man’s life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.

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

In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.

Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.

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.

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

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

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.

A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.

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

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

You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.

There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex.

Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon; of loud noise, but little danger.

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.

Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.

Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and… the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.

That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner.

Wine gives a man nothing… it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

The future is purchased by the present.

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.

I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.

The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.

He that overvalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them.

He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.

Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.