B.S. Johnson Quotes

When people find a man of the most distinguished abilities as a writer their inferior while he is with them, it must be highly gratifying to them.

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

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

Whoever rises above those who once pleased themselves with equality, will have many malevolent gazers at his eminence.

Mutual cowardice keeps us in peace.

Pain and disease awaken us to convictions which are necessary to our moral condition.

Politeness is fictitious benevolence.

I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.

There is no being so poor and so contemptible, who does not think there is somebody still poorer, and still more contemptible.

Lawful and settled authority is very seldom resisted when it is well employed.

Attack is the reaction. I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds.

One cause, which is not always observed, of the insufficiency of riches, is that they very seldom make their owner rich.

Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled.

The real satisfaction which praise can afford, is when what is repeated aloud agrees with the whispers of conscience, by showing us that we have not endeavored to deserve well in vain.

Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity.

Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance, and the parent of Liberty.

The mind is seldom quickened to very vigorous operations but by pain, or the dread of pain. We do not disturb ourselves with the detection of fallacies which do us no harm.

If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.

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

Contempt is a kind of gangrene which, if it seizes one part of a character, corrupts all the rest by degrees.

Hunger is never delicate.

Apologies are seldom of any use.

Perhaps man is the only being that can properly be called idle.

All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.

There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.

The equity of Providence has balanced peculiar sufferings with peculiar enjoyments.

You despise a man for avarice; but you do not hate him.

It is surely very narrow policy that supposes money to be the chief good.

Cautious age suspects the flattering form, and only credits what experience tells.

Those who will not take the trouble to think for themselves, have always somebody that thinks for them; and the difficulty in writing is to please those from whom others learn to be pleased.

We may take Fancy for a companion, but must follow Reason as our guide.

He that voluntarily continues in ignorance, is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces.

Wit will never make a man rich, but there are places where riches will always make a wit.

The mental disease of the present generation is impatience of study, contempt of the great masters of ancient wisdom, and a disposition to rely wholly upon unassisted genius and natural sagacity.

The only thing I expect out of lawyers is that they be back in their coffins by sunup.

I wasn't hired to be a moral judge. I wasn't hired to be a preacher or an evangelist. I'm hired to apply the law.

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

Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.

It is a hopeless endeavour to unite the contrarieties of spring and winter; it is unjust to claim the privileges of age, and retain the play-things of childhood.

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.

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

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

Admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne; judgment and friendship are like being enlivened.

The round of a passionate man's life is in contracting debts in his passion, which his virtue obliges him to pay. He spends his time in outrage and acknowledgment, injury and reparation.

No man can fall into contempt but those who deserve it.

No one ever became great by imitation.

I'm absolutely a Ron Paul fan.

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

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

Wise married women don't trouble themselves about infidelity in their husbands.