Samuel Johnson Quotes
If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.
Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought; our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
It is however, reasonable, to have perfection in our eye; that we may always advance towards it, though we know it never can be reached.
There is a certain degree of temptation which will overcome any virtue. Now, in so far as you approach temptation to a man, you do him an injury; and, if he is overcome, you share his guilt.
The natural progress of the works of men is from rudeness to convenience, from convenience to elegance, and from elegance to nicety.
In solitude we have our dreams to ourselves, and in company we agree to dream in concert.
Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own.
Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and... the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.
Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?
All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.
Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.
The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.
It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.
Read over your compositions and whenever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
He that teaches us anything which we knew not before is undoubtedly to be reverenced as a master.
Don't tell me of deception; a lie is a lie, whether it be a lie to the eye or a lie to the ear.
A Scotchman must be a very sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth.
Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon; of loud noise, but little danger.
In bed we laugh, in bed we cry, and born in bed, in bed we die; the near approach a bed may show of human bliss to human woe.
The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England.
The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise and motion.
Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanics laughs at strength.
I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.
It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.
