Samuel Johnson Quotations | Page 5

Madam, before you flatter a man so grossly to his face, you should consider whether or not your flattery is worth his having.

An Englishman is content to say nothing when he has nothing to say.

When two Eglishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather.

Much is due to those who first broke the way to knowledge, and left only to their successors the task of smoothing it.

It is true that of far the greater part of things, we must content ourselves with such knowledge as description may exhibit, or analogy supply; but it is true likewise, that these ideas are always incomplete, and that at least, till we have compared them with realities, we do not know them to be just. As we see more, we become possessed of more certainties, and consequently gain more principles of reasoning, and found a wider base of analogy.

Other things may be seized by might, or purchased with money, but knowledge is to be gained only by study, and study to be prosecuted only in retirement.

Though it is evident, that not more than one age or people can deserve the censure of being more averse from learning than any other, yet at all times knowledge must have encountered impediments, and wit been mortified with contempt, or harassed with persecution.

The number of such as live without the ardour of inquiry is very small, though many content themselves with cheap amusements, and waste their lives in researches of no importance.

The specualtist, who is not content with superficial views, harasses himself with fruitless curiosity; and still, as he inquires more, perceives only that he knows less.

Knowledge is praised and desired by multitudes whom her charms could never rouse from the couch of sloth; whom the faintest invitation of pleasure draws away from their studies; to whom any other method of wearing the day is more eligible than the use of books, and who are more easily engaged by any conversation than such as may rectify their notions or enlarge their comprehension.

All intellectual improvement arises from leisure.

A man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man, because he has both enjoyments.

Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?

The true genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.

Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

Grief is a species of idleness.

It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination.

When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.

Nature never gives everything at once.

It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.

Pride is a vice, which pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in himself

Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.

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

Shame arises from the fear of men, conscience from the fear of God.

Hope is necessary in every condition.

To a poet nothing can be useless.

Many of our miseries are merely comparative: we are often made unhappy, not by the presence of any real evil, but by the absence of some fictitious good; of something which is not required by any real want of nature, which has not in itself any power of gratification, and which neither reason nor fancy would have prompted us to wish, did we not see it in the possession of others.

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.

Prejudice, not being founded on reason, cannot be removed by argument.

Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.

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.

Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content. No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of the spring: no man can, at the same time, fill his cup from the source and from the mouth of the Nile.

The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.

A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.

[C]ourage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.

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.

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.

Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.

A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who, instead of aiming a single stone at an object, takes up a handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit.

The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it.

You can never be wise unless you love reading.

No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.

Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.

I had done all that I could, and no Man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.

People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed.

Knock the 't' off the 'can't.'

Cucumber should be well sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out.

Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.

We seldom learn the true want of what we have till it is discovered that we can have no more.

To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise...Let him take a course of chemistry, or a course of rope-dance, or a course of any thing to which he is inclined at the time. Let him contrive to have as many retreats for his mind as he can, as many things to which it can fly from itself.

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

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. Every advance into knowledge opens new prospects, and produces new incitements to farther progress.

The disturbers of happiness are our desires, our griefs, and our fears.

To hear complaints is wearisome alike to the wretched and the happy.

No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability.

No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.

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

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

The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.

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

There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart a desire of distinction, which inclines every man first to hope, and then to believe, that Nature has given him something peculiar to himself.

Our aspirations are our possibilities.

The vicious count their years; virtuous, their acts.

He that would travel for the entertainment of others, should remember that the great object of remark is human life. Every nation has something peculiar in its manufactures, its works of genius, its medicines, its agriculture, its customs, and its policy. He only is a useful traveller, who brings home something by which his country might be benefitted; who procures some supply of want, or some mitigation of evil, which may enable his readers to compare their condition with that of others, to improve it whenever it is worse, and whenever it is better to enjoy it.

It is the just doom of laziness and gluttony to be inactive without ease and drowsy without tranquility.

Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance. Those that walk with vigor, three hours a day, will pass in seven years a space equal to the circumference of the globe.

The joy of life is variety; the tenderest love requires to be rekindled by intervals of absence.

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 drive into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.

Abuse is often of service. There is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence.

Wine gives great pleasure; and every pleasure is of itself a good. It is a good, unless counterbalanced by evil.

Deviation from Nature is deviation from happiness.

The Irish are a fair people: They never speak well of one another.

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

The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality.

A contempt of the monuments and the wisdom of the past, may be justly reckoned one of the reigning follies of these days, to which pride and idleness have equally contributed.

How small of all that human hearts endure/That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.

No cause more frequently produces bashfulness than too high an opinion of our own importance. He that imagines an assembly filled with his merit, panting with expectation, and hushed with attention, easily terrifies himself with the dread of disappointing them, and strains his imagination in pursuit of something that may vindicate the veracity of fame, and show that his reputation was not gained by chance.

I am a hardened and shameless tea drinker, who has, for twenty years, diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle has scarcely time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and, with tea, welcomes the morning.

Music is the only sensual pleasure without vice.

Books have always a secret influence on the understanding.

Modern writers are the moons of literature; they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients.

A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity.

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.

When any fit of gloominess, or perversion of mind, lays hold upon you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaints.

Language is the dress of thought; every time you talk your mind is on parade.

How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in every place consigned, Our own felicity we make or find. With secret course, which no loud storms annoy, Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.

Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it.

Cruel with guilt, and daring with despair, the midnight murderer bursts the faithless bar; invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a dagger in your breast.

The eye of the mind, like that of the body, can only extend its view to new objects, by losing sight of those which are now before it.

Hope is itself a species of happiness...

I know not any crime so great that a man could contrive to commit as poisoning the sources of eternal truth.

He that hopes to look back hereafter with satisfaction upon past years must learn to know the present value of single minutes, and endeavour to let no particle of time fall useless to the ground.

No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had

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

Sir, sorrow is inherent in humanity. As you cannot judge two and two to be either five, or three, but certainly four, so, when comparing a worse present state with a better which is past, you cannot but feel sorrow. It is not cured by reason, but by the incursion of present objects, which bear out the past.

Nothing can be truly great which is not right.

Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists.

Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.