Samuel Johnson Quotes
Cucumber should be well sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out.
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
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.
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.
When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.
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.
Exert your talents, and distinguish yourself, and don't think of retiring from the world, until the world will be sorry that you retire.
When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.
I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.
Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
If the man who turnips cries, Cry not when his father dies, 'Tis proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father.
We may have uneasy feelings for seeing a creature in distress without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them.
When emulation leads us to strive for self-elevation by merit alone, and not by belittling another, then it is one of the grandest possible incentives to action.
Oratory is the power of beating down your adversary's arguments and putting better in their place.
The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in a few words.
I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it
He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind than the strokes of the oar; and many fold in their passage; while they lie waiting for the gale.
Where there is emulation, there will be vanity; where there is vanity, there will be folly.
Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.
Why, sir, Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, Sir, is not in Nature.
The habit of looking on the bright side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.
A mere literary man is a dull man; a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man; but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.
If in an actor there appears an utter vacancy of meaning, a frigid equality, a stupid languor, a torpid apathy, the greatest kindness that can be shown him is a speedy sentence of expulsion.
No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction. A man is pleased that his wife is dressed as well as other people, and the wife is pleased that she is dressed.
Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him who he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society.
No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.
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.
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.
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.