Samuel Johnson

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

— 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

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then.

— Samuel Johnson

The trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. But as every art ought to be exercised in due subordination to the public good, I cannot but propose it as a moral question to these masters of the public ear, whether they do not sometimes play too wantonly with our passions.

— Samuel Johnson

Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.

— Samuel Johnson

A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

There are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits that are not good until they are rotten.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.

— Samuel Johnson

We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.

— Samuel Johnson

Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.

— Samuel Johnson

Nothing is more common than mutual dislike, where mutual approbation is particularly expected.

— Samuel Johnson

The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.

— Samuel Johnson

Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.

— Samuel Johnson

No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned. A man in a jail has more room, better food and commonly better company.

— Samuel Johnson

No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.

— Samuel Johnson

They that have grown old in a single state are generally found to be morose, fretful and captious; tenacious of their own practices and maxims; soon offended by contradiction or negligence; and impatient of any association but with those that will watch their nod, and submit themselves to unlimited authority.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

I have thought of a pulley to raise me gradually; but that would give me pain, as it would counteract my natural inclination. I would have something that can dissipate the inertia and give elasticity to the muscles. We can heat the body, we can cool it; we can give it tension or relaxation; and surely it is possible to bring it into a state in which rising from bed will not be a pain.

— Samuel Johnson

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.

— Samuel Johnson

Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.

— Samuel Johnson

The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.

— Samuel Johnson

Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return.

— Samuel Johnson

Every other enjoyment malice may destroy; every other panegyric envy may withhold; but no human power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums.

— Samuel Johnson

Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience. You will find it a calamity.

— Samuel Johnson

I am sorry I have not learnt to play at cards. It is very useful in life: it generates kindness, and consolidates society.

— Samuel Johnson

No member of society has the right to teach any doctrine contrary to what society holds to be true.

— Samuel Johnson

It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be afterwards censured, than it would be to sleep with doors unbolted, because by our laws we can hang a thief.

— Samuel Johnson

Such is the state of life, that 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 world is not yet exhausted; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labor, than when you give money merely in charity.

— Samuel Johnson

There are charms made only for distance admiration.

— Samuel Johnson

Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity.

— Samuel Johnson

This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him.

— Samuel Johnson

Hunger is never delicate; they who are seldom gorged to the full with praise may be safely fed with gross compliments, for the appetite must be satisfied before it is disgusted.

— Samuel Johnson

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

The luster of diamonds is invigorated by the interposition of darker bodies; the lights of a picture are created by the shades; the highest pleasure which nature has indulged to sensitive perception is that of rest after fatigue.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

No two men can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

— Samuel Johnson

Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing.

— Samuel Johnson

He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.

— Samuel Johnson

Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.

— Samuel Johnson

There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can in this state receive no answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? Since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?

— Samuel Johnson

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.

— Samuel Johnson

Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.

— Samuel Johnson

I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.

— Samuel Johnson

Small debts are like small gun shot; they are rattling around us on all sides and one can scarcely escape being wounded. Large debts are like canons, they produce a loud noise, but are of little danger.

— Samuel Johnson

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.

— Samuel Johnson

Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.

— Samuel Johnson

Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.

— Samuel Johnson

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

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

— Samuel Johnson

Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted to very few.

— Samuel Johnson

Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.

— Samuel Johnson

Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success; for it supplies as many images to the mind, and as many topics to the tongue.

— Samuel Johnson

No man likes to live under the eye of perpetual disapprobation.

— Samuel Johnson

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

— Samuel Johnson

Sir, a man who cannot get to heaven in a green coat, will not find his way thither the sooner in a gray one.

— Samuel Johnson

Sir, he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull everywhere. He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him great.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

A am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

His scorn of the great is repeated too often to be real; no man thinks much of that which he despises.

— Samuel Johnson

In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.

— 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

It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.

— Samuel Johnson

It is better that some should be unhappy than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

— Samuel Johnson

They teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master.

— Samuel Johnson

Exercise is labor without weariness.

— Samuel Johnson

I know not anything more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to time the difference between idea and reality. It is by this kind of observation that we grow daily less liable to be disappointed.

— Samuel Johnson

As to the rout that is made about people who are ruined by extravagance, it is no matter to the nation that some individuals suffer. When so much general productive exertion is the consequence of luxury, the nation does not care though there are debtors; nay, they would not care though their creditors were there too.

— Samuel Johnson

He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds; but he that endeavors after it by false merit, has to fear, not only the violence of the storm, but the leaks of his vessel.

— Samuel Johnson

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