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Samuel Johnson

English writer and lexicographer (1709-1784)

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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.

– Samuel Johnson

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Being in a ship is like being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.

– Samuel Johnson

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A cucumber should be well-sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out.

– Samuel Johnson

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An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere.

– Samuel Johnson

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Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.

– Samuel Johnson

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ESSAY -- A loose sally of the mind an irregular indigested piece not a regular and orderly composition.

– Samuel Johnson

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I hate mankind, for I think myself to be one of them, and I know how bad I am.

– Samuel Johnson

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Men are wise in proportion not to their experience but to their capacity for experience.

– Samuel Johnson

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Nothing so concentrates the mind as the sight of the gallows.

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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Old age is not a disease- it is strength and survivorship, triumph over all kinds of vicissitudes and disappointments, trials and illnesses.

– Samuel Johnson

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Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.

– Samuel Johnson

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The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

– Samuel Johnson

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The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things--the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.

– Samuel Johnson

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There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed.

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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When making your choice in life, do not neglect to live.

– Samuel Johnson

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The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.

– Samuel Johnson

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Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

– Samuel Johnson

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If you are idle, be not solitary if you are solitary be not idle.

– Samuel Johnson

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We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship formed. As in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over so in a series of kindness there is at last one which makes the heart run over.

– Samuel Johnson

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I have found you an argument: but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

– Samuel Johnson

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No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.

– Samuel Johnson

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The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who has 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 griefs which he purposes to remove.

– Samuel Johnson

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There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.

– Samuel Johnson

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Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

– Samuel Johnson

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A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.

– Samuel Johnson

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Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

– Samuel Johnson

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It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

– Samuel Johnson

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Always set high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.

– Samuel Johnson

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An intellectual improvement arises from leisure.

– Samuel Johnson

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Round numbers are always false.

– Samuel Johnson

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A cucumber whould be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and viniger, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.

– Samuel Johnson

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Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.

– Samuel Johnson

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I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

– Samuel Johnson

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Keeping accounts, Sir, is of no use when a man is spending his own money, and has nobody to whom he is to account. You won't eat less beef today, because you have written down what it cost yesterday.

– Samuel Johnson

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A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.

– Samuel Johnson

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A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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Abstinence is as easy to me, as temperance would be difficult.

– Samuel Johnson

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Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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Americans are a race of convicts and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.

– Samuel Johnson

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As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which he cannot apply will make no man wise.

– Samuel Johnson

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As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.

– Samuel Johnson

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Be not too hasty to trust or admire the teachers of morality they discourse like angels, but they live like men.

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

– Samuel Johnson

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Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.

– Samuel Johnson

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Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

– Samuel Johnson

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Do not ... hope wholly to reason away your troubles do not feed them with attention, and they will die imperceptibly away. Fix your thoughts upon your business, fill your intervals with company, and sunshine will again break in upon your mind.

– Samuel Johnson

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Do not discourage your children from hoarding, if they have a taste to it; whoever lays up his penny rather than part with it for a cake, at least is not the slave of gross appetite; and shows besides a preference always to be esteemed, of the future to the present moment.

– Samuel Johnson

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Don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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Golf is a game in which you claim the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood.

– Samuel Johnson

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Grief is a species of idleness.

– Samuel Johnson

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He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.

– Samuel Johnson

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He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.

– Samuel Johnson

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He who praises everybody, praises nobody.

– Samuel Johnson

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Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.

– Samuel Johnson

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Hope is necessary in every condition.

– Samuel Johnson

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Hope itself is a species of happiness, and perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.

– Samuel Johnson

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I hate mankind, for I think of myself as one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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I would rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.

– Samuel Johnson

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If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair.

– Samuel Johnson

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If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.

– Samuel Johnson

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If you are idle, be not solitary. If you are solitary, be not idle.

– Samuel Johnson

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If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.

– Samuel Johnson

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It is better to live rich than to die rich.

– Samuel Johnson

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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.

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas.

– Samuel Johnson

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Language is the dress of thought.

– Samuel Johnson

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Learn that the present hour alone is man's.

– Samuel Johnson

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Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

– Samuel Johnson

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Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.

– Samuel Johnson

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Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult.

– Samuel Johnson

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Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

– Samuel Johnson

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No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

– Samuel Johnson

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No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, nor more wise when he had.

– Samuel Johnson

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No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into jail for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

– Samuel Johnson

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No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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Of all the griefs that harass the distrest, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.

– Samuel Johnson

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Our aspirations are our possibilities.

– Samuel Johnson

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Patriotism having become one of our topicks, Johnson suddenly uttered, in a strong determined tone, an apophthegm, at which many will start Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. But let it be considered that he did not mean a real and generous love of our country, but that pretended patriotism which so many, in all ages and countries, have made a cloak of self- interest.

– Samuel Johnson

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Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

– Samuel Johnson

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Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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Self confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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Sir, he throws away his money without thought and without merit. I do not call a tree generous that sheds its fruit at every breeze.

– Samuel Johnson

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Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden exchange meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness had before concealed they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with cruelty.

– Samuel Johnson

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That fellow seems to posses but one idea and that is the wrong one.

– Samuel Johnson

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The Irish are a fair people - they never speak well of one another

– Samuel Johnson

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The world is not yet exhaused let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.

– Samuel Johnson

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There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.

– Samuel Johnson

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There is no observation more frequently made by such as employ themselves in surveying the conduct of mankind, than that marriage, though the dictate of nature, and the institution of Providence, is yet very often the cause of misery, and that those who enter into that state can seldom forbear to express their repentance, and their envy of those whom either chance or caution hath withheld from it.

– Samuel Johnson

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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.

– Samuel Johnson

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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.

– Samuel Johnson

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To hear complaints with patience, even when complaints are vain, is one of the duties of friendship.

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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What we hope ever to do with ease we may learn first to do with diligence.

– Samuel Johnson

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When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

– Samuel Johnson

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When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am.

– Samuel Johnson

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When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality.

– Samuel Johnson

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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.

– Samuel Johnson

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Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.

– Samuel Johnson

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You must have taken great pains, sir; you could not naturally been so very stupid.

– Samuel Johnson

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You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument.

– Samuel Johnson

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

– Samuel Johnson

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Your aspirations are your possibilities.

– Samuel Johnson

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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.

– Samuel Johnson

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