Samuel Johnson

We love to overlook the boundaries which we do not wish to pass.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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.

— Samuel Johnson

When any calamity has been suffered, the first thing to be remembered is how much has been escaped.

— Samuel Johnson

He that travels in theory has no inconveniences; he has shade and sunshine at his disposal, and wherever he alights finds tables of plenty and looks of gaiety. These ideas are indulged till the day of departure arrives, the chaise is called, and the progress of happiness begins. A few miles teach him the fallacies of imagination. The road is dusty, the air is sultry, the horses are sluggish. He longs for the time of dinner that he may eat and rest. The inn is crowded, his orders are neglected, and nothing remains but that he devour in haste what the cook has spoiled, and drive on in quest of better entertainment. He finds at night a more commodious house, but the best is always worse than he expected.

— Samuel Johnson

In traveling, a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

Worth seeing? Yes; but not worth going to see.

— Samuel Johnson

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 travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

— Samuel Johnson

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree. We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

— Samuel Johnson

No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it. There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government.

— Samuel Johnson

Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

— Samuel Johnson

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.

— Samuel Johnson

The world will never be long without some good reason to hate the unhappy; their real faults are immediately detected, and if those are not sufficient to sink them into infamy, an additional weight of calumny will be super added.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

The longer we live the more we think and the higher the value we put on friendship and tenderness towards parents and friends.

— Samuel Johnson

There is nothing so much seduces reason from vigilance as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman in marriage.

— Samuel Johnson

The wise man applauds he who he thinks most virtuous; the rest of the world applauds the wealthy.

— Samuel Johnson

Virtue is too often merely local.

— Samuel Johnson

Wickedness is always easier than virtue, for it takes a short cut to everything.

— Samuel Johnson

A vow is a snare for sin.

— Samuel Johnson

A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.

— Samuel Johnson

He that outlives a wife whom he has long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same hopes, and fears, and interest; from the only companion with whom he has shared much good and evil; and with whom he could set his mind at liberty, to retrace the past or anticipate the future. The continuity of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and action is stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless.

— Samuel Johnson

Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has repressed. It only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

— Samuel Johnson

Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others... This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

— Samuel Johnson

He is no wise man who will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.

— Samuel Johnson

He who has provoked the shaft of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.

— Samuel Johnson

It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharge of any profession.

— Samuel Johnson

That observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good.

— Samuel Johnson

Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.

— Samuel Johnson

I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much.

— Samuel Johnson

In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.

— Samuel Johnson

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.

— Samuel Johnson

Youth enters the world with very happy prejudices in her own favor. She imagines herself not only certain of accomplishing every adventure, but of obtaining those rewards which the accomplishment may deserve. She is not easily persuaded to believe that the force of merit can be resisted by obstinacy and avarice, or its luster darkened by envy and malignity.

— Samuel Johnson

A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately after his wife died: Johnson said, it was the triumph of hope over experience.

— Samuel Johnson

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.

— Samuel Johnson

He who praises every body, praises nobody.

— Samuel Johnson

Among the calamities of war, may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates, and credulity encourages.

— Samuel Johnson

It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehend at once all the consequences of a position, or perceive the difficulties by which cooler and more experienced reasoners are restrained from confidence, they form their conclusions with great precipitance. Seeing nothing that can darken or embarrass the question, they expect to find their own opinion universally prevalent, and are inclined to impute uncertainty and hesitation to want of honesty, rather than of knowledge.

— Samuel Johnson

Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

— Samuel Johnson

ALMOST ALL ABSURDITY OF CONDUCT ARISES FROM THE IMITATION OF THOSE WHOM WE CANNOT RESEMBLE.

— Samuel Johnson

[Sunday] should be different from another day. People may walk, but not throw stones at birds. There may be relaxation, but there should be no levity.

— Samuel Johnson

Sir, I have no objection to a man's drinking wine, if he can do it in moderation. I found myself apt to go to excess in it, and therefore, after having been for some time without it, on account of illness, I thought it better not to return to it. Every man is to judge for himself, according to the effects which he experiences.

— Samuel Johnson

Where there is leisure for fiction there is little grief.

— Samuel Johnson

Why, to eat and drink together, and to promote kindness; and Sir, this is better done when there is no solid conversation; for when there is, people differ in opinion, and get into bad humour, or some of the company who are not capable of such conversation, are left out, and feel themselves uneasy. It was for this reason, Sir Robert Walpole said, he always talked bawdy at his table, because in that all could join.

— Samuel Johnson

The more we enquire, the less we can resolve.

— Samuel Johnson

Human life is every where a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

— Samuel Johnson

Great works are performed, not by strength, but perseverance: yonder palace was raised by single stones, yet you see its height and spaciousness. He that shall walk with vigour three hours a day will pass in seven years a space equal to the circumference of the globe.

— Samuel Johnson

In a commercial country, a busy country, time becomes precious, and therefore hospitality is not so much valued. No doubt there is still room for a certain degree of it; and a man has a satisfaction in seeing his friends eating and drinking around him. But promiscuous hospitality is not the way to gain real influence. You must help some people at table before others; you must ask some people how they like their wine oftener than others. You therefore offend more people than you please.

— Samuel Johnson

When first the college rolls receive his name, The young enthusiast quits his ease for fame; Through all his veins the fever of renown Burns from the strong contagion of the gown. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause awhile from letters, to be wise; There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.

— Samuel Johnson

Long-expected one and twenty Ling'ring year at last is flown; Pomp and Pleasure, Pride and Plenty, Great Sir John, are all your own.

— Samuel Johnson

The true period of human existence may be reasonably estimated as forty years.

— Samuel Johnson

From those bright regions of eternal day, Where now thou shin'st amongst thy fellow saints, Array'd in purer light, look down on me! In pleasing visions and delusive dreams. O! sooth my soul, and teach me how to lose thee.

— Samuel Johnson

The love of Retirement has, in all ages, adhered closely to those minds which have been most enlarged by knowledge, or elevated by genius. Those who enjoyed every thing generally supposed to confer happiness have been forced to seek it in the shades of privacy.

— Samuel Johnson

Towering is the confidence of twenty-one.

— Samuel Johnson

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

Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.

— Samuel Johnson

Oats—A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

It is always observable that silence propagates itself, and that the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find any thing to say.

— Samuel Johnson

To a pet nothing can be useless.

— Samuel Johnson

Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.

— Samuel Johnson