Samuel Johnson Quotes on Pleasure (23 Quotes)

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.

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.

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

The great source of pleasure is variety.

Pleasure that is obtained by unreasonable and unsuitable cost, must always end in pain.

The present time is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.

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

The expense is damnable, the position is ridiculous, and the pleasure fleeting.

That all who are happy are equally happy is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. A small drinking glass and a large one may be equally full, but the large one holds more than the small.

Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition.

If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?

Of Garrick's death That stroke of death, which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.

Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

'I fly from pleasure,' said the prince, 'because pleasure has ceased to please I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others.'

Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

Solitude excludes pleasure, and does not always secure peace.

Attention and respect give pleasure, however late, or however useless. But they are not useless, when they are late, it is reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind.

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

It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them.

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.

Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness.

There is a certain race of men that either imagine it their duty, or make it their amusement, to hinder the reception of every work of learning or genius, who stand as sentinels in the avenues of fame. . .

No greater felicity can genius attain than that of having purified intellectual pleasure, separated mirth from indecency, and wit from licentiousness.