Samuel Johnson Quotes (759 Quotes)

Suspicion is most often useless pain.

There must always be a struggle between a father and son, while one aims at power and the other at independence.

The age being now past of vagrant excursion and fortuitous hostility, he was under the necessity of travelling from court to court, scorned and repulsed as a wild projector, an idle promiser of kingdoms in the clouds nor has any part of the world y

Justice is indispensably and universally necessary, and what is necessary must always be limited, uniform, and distinct

In my early years I read very hard. It is a sad reflection, but a true one, that I knew almost as much at eighteen as I do now.

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.

Philips, whose touch harmonious could remove The pangs of guilty power and hapless love Rest here, distress'd by poverty no more Here find that calm thou gav'st so oft before Sleep undisturb'd within this peaceful shrine, Till angels wake thee with a note like thine.

Nothing is to be expected from the workman whose tools are for ever to be sought

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

It is unjust to claim the privileges of age and retain the playthings of childhood.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Tomorrow is an old deceiver, and his cheat never grows stale.

PATRON One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is paid with flattery.

When there is no hope, there can be no endeavor.

There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.

Power is always gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent.

BOSWELL. I do indeed come from Scotland, but I cannot help it . . . JOHNSON. That, Sir, I find, is what a very great many of your countrymen cannot help.

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

He who endeavors to please must appear to be pleased.

Your levelers wish to level down as far as themselves but they cannot bear leveling up to themselves.

Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial, and rather political than religious.

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.

He that finds his knowledge narrow, and his arguments weak, and by consequence his suffrage not much regarded, is sometimes in hope of gaining that attention by his clamours which he cannot otherwise obtain, and is pleased with remembering that at la.

There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex.

A very unclubable man.

Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.

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

It may likewise contribute to soften that resentment which pride naturally raises against opposition, if we consider, that he who differs from us, does not always contradict us he has one view of an object, and we have another each describes what h

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

Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate.

Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow, attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.

Every man has, some time in his life, an ambition to be a wag.

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

It is burning a farthing candle at Dover, to shew light at Calais.

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

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

Where there is no hope there can be no endeavor.

Go into the street and give one man a lecture on morality and another a shilling, and see which one will respect you most.

Surely life, if it be not long, is tedious, since we are forced to call in the assistance of so many trifles to rid us of our time, of that time which never can return.

Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so, they are gone to milk the bull.

On Sir Joshua Reynoldss observing that the real character of a man was found out by his amusements. Yes, Sir, no man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.

Conjecture as to things useful, is good but conjecture as to what it would be useless to know, is very idle.

Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.

Abuse is often of service. There is nothing so dangerous to an author as silence. His name, like the shuttlecock, must be beat backward and forward, or it falls to the ground.

Scarcely anything awakens attention like a tale of cruelty. The writer of news never fails to tell how the enemy murdered children and ravished virgins.

The future is purchased by the present.

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.

Second Marriage the triumph of hope over experience.

The trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement.

Was ever poet so trusted before.