Samuel Johnson Men Quotations

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

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.

Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.

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.

A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority.

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

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

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

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

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

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

A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.

Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.

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

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

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

By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time.

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.

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.

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

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

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

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.

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

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

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

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

I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.

Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.

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

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.

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

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

I have observed, that in comedy, the best actor plays the part of the droll, while some scrub rogue is made the hero, or fine gentleman. So, in this farce of life, wise men pass their time in mirth, whilst fools only are serious.

If a man begins to read in the middle of a book, and feels an inclination to go on, let him not quit it to go to the beginning. He may perhaps not feel again the inclination.

A man's mind grows narrow in a narrow place.

Is not a patron one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?

Though the wisdom or virtue of one can very rarely make many happy, the folly or vice of one man often make many miserable.

All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare.

No estimate is more in danger of erroneous calculations than those by which a man computes the force of his own genius.

You cannot, by all the lecturing in the world, enable a man to make a shoe.

There is a certain degree of temptation which will overcome any virtue. Now, in so far as you approach temptation to a man, you do him an injury; and, if he is overcome, you share his guilt.

Every man prefers virtue, when there is not some strong incitement to transgress its precepts.

Most vices may be committed very genteelly: a man may debauch his friend's wife genteelly: he may cheat at cards genteelly

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.

Piety practiced in solitude, like the flower that blooms in the desert, may give its fragrance to the winds of heaven, and delight those unbodied spirits that survey the works of God and the actions of men; but it bestows no assistance upon earthly beings, and however free from taints of impurity, yet wants the sacred splendor of beneficence.

No man is much regarded by the rest of the world. He that considers how little he dwells upon the condition of others, will learn how little the attention of others is attracted by himself. While we see multitudes passing before us, of whom perhaps not one appears to deserve our notice or excites our sympathy, we should remember, that we likewise are lost in the same throng, that the eye which happens to glance upon us is turned in a moment on him that follows us, and that the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear is to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and be forgotten.

...a man estimable for his learning, amiable for his life, and venerable for his piety. Arbuthnot was a man of great comprehension, skilful in his profession, versed in the sciences, acquainted with ancient literature, and able to animate his mass of knowledge by a bright and active imagination; a scholar with great brilliance of wit; a wit who, in the crowd of life, retained and discovered a noble ardour of religious zeal.

The roads of science are narrow, so that they who travel them, must wither follow or meet one another...

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

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

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

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

Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

Most men think indistinctly, and therefore cannot speak with exactness . . .

Man's chief merit consists in resisting the impulses of his nature.

No man was ever great by imitation.

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

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.

A fellow will hack half a year at a block of marble to make something in stone that hardly resembles a man. The value of statuary is owing to its difficulty. You would not value the finest head cut upon a carrot.

Advice, as it always gives a temporary appearance of superiority, can never be very grateful, even when it is most necessary or most judicious. But for the same reason everyone is eager to instruct his neighbours. To be wise or to be virtuous is to buy dignity and importance at a high price; but when nothing is necessary to elevation but detection of the follies or faults of others, no man is so insensible to the voice of fame as to linger on the ground.

A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company

Exercise cannot secure us from that dissolution to which we are decreed; but while the soul and body continue united, it can make the association pleasing, and give probable hopes that they shall be disciplined by an easy separation...to die is the fate of man; but to die with lingering anguish is generally his folly.

Every state of society is as luxurious as it can be. Men always take the best they can get.

This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.

Every man, however hopeless his pretensions may appear, has some project by which he hopes to rise to reputation; some art by which he imagines that the attention of the world will be attracted; some quality, good or bad, which discriminates him from the common herd of mortals, and by which others may be persuaded to love, or compelled to fear him.

Was there ever yet anything written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?

I love the acquaintance of young people; because, in the first place, I do not like to think myself growing old. In the next place, young acquaintances must last longest, if they do last; and then, sir, young men have more virtue than old men; they have more generous sentiments in every respect.

I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, "Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task.

A man has no more right to say an uncivil thing than to act one; no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down.

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

The man who feels himself ignorant should, at least, be modest.

It is a maxim that no man was ever enslaved by influence while he was fit to be free.

Irresolution and mutability are often the faults of men whose views are wide, and whose imagination is vigorous and excursive.

Many a man is mad in certain instances, and goes through life without having it perceived. For example, a madness has seized a person of supposing himself obliged literally to pray continually; had the madness turned the opposite way, and the person thought it a crime ever to pray, it might not improbably have continued unobserved.

A man of sense and education should meet a suitable companion in a wife. It is a miserable thing when the conversation can only be such as whether the mutton should be boiled or roasted, and probably a dispute about that.

A married man has many cares, but a bachelor no pleasures.

Among many parallels which men of imagination have drawn between the natural and moral state of the world, it has been observed that happiness as well as virtue consists in mediocrity.

There may be other reasons for a man's not speaking in publick than want of resolution: he may have nothing to say.

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. The power of invention has been conferred by nature upon few, and the labour of learning those sciences which may, by mere labour, be obtained, is too great to be willingly endured; but every man can exert some judgment as he has upon the works of others; and he whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of critic.

It is incident to physicians, I am afraid, beyond all other men, to mistake subsequence for consequence.

Wine gives great pleasure, and every pleasure is of itself a good. and A man should cultivate his mind so as to have that confidence and readiness without wine, which wine gives.

Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities, superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world; and, whatever apparent disadvantages he may suffer in the comparison with others, he has some invisible distinctions, some latent reserve of excellence, which he throws into the balance, and by which he generally fancies that it is turned in his favour.

So willing is every man to flatter himself, that the difference between approving laws, and obeying them, is frequently forgotten; he that acknowledges the obligations of morality and pleases his vanity with enforcing them to others, concludes himself zealous in the cause of virtue.