Samuel Johnson Quotes

I have always considered a clergyman as the father of a larger family than he is able to maintain.

Change is not made without inconvenience.

Each person's work is always a portrait of himself.

Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.

The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.

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

When speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.

Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.

Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.

You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their labor, than when you give money merely in charity.

Whatever is formed for long duration arrives slowly to its maturity.

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

The number of such as live without the ardour of inquiry is very small, though many content themselves with cheap amusements, and waste their lives in researches of no importance.

There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, toil, envy, want, and patron.

Liberty is, to the lowest rank of every nation, little more than the choice of working or starving.

You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument.

Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.

Tea's proper use is to amuse the idle, and relax the studious, and dilute the full meals of those who cannot use exercise, and will not use abstinence.

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

From Bard, to Bard, the frigid Caution crept, Till Declamation roar'd, while Passion slept.

To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage.

You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not - silence is the sharper sword.

More knowledge may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree and ended with his funeral.

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

All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.

Pride is seldom delicate, it will please itself with very mean advantages; and envy feels not its own happiness, but when it may be compared with the misery of others

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing - it only hastens fools to rush in where angels fear to tread.

I am not so lost in lexicography as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.

Grief is a species of idleness.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.

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

Every desire is a viper in the bosom, who while he was chill was harmless; but when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison.

You cannot give me an instance of any man who is permitted to lay out his own time contriving not to have tedious hours.

Remember that nothing will supply the want of prudence, and that negligence and irregularity long continued will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible.

I do not envy a clergyman's life as an easy life, nor do I envy the clergyman who makes it an easy life.

They who most loudly clamour for liberty do not most liberally grant it.

He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.

Allegories drawn to great length will always break.

Of all the griefs that harass the distress'd, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest; Fate never wounds more deep the generous heart, Than when a blockhead's insult points the dart.

Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.

The lust of gold succeeds the rage of conquest; The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless! The last corruption of degenerate man.

Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

Hunger is never delicate; they who are seldom gorged to the full with praise may be safely fed with gross compliments, for the appetite must be satisfied before it is disgusted.

Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes, And pause a while from learning to be wise. There mark what ills the scholar's life assail,- Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.

The gloomy and the resentful are always found among those who have nothing to do or who do nothing.

Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.

Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.

To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.

You can never be wise unless you love reading.

Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.