Authors:  A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Samuel Johnson's Quotes

Samuel Johnson profile photo

Born: 1970-01-01
Profession: Author
Nation: English
Biography of Samuel Johnson

See the gallery for quotes by Samuel Johnson. You can to use those 8 images of quotes as a desktop wallpapers.
Samuel Johnson's quote #1
Samuel Johnson's quote #2
Samuel Johnson's quote #3
Samuel Johnson's quote #4
Samuel Johnson's quote #5
Samuel Johnson's quote #6
Samuel Johnson's quote #7
Samuel Johnson's quote #8

A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.

Tags: General, Good, Wife

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

Tags: Business, Life, Money

Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.

Tags: Happiness, Proud, Wife

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

Tags: Silence, Sword, Word

Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.

Tags: Curiosity, Intellect, Permanent

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.

Tags: Book, Greatest, Time

Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.

Tags: Books, Few, Friends

When making your choice in life, do not neglect to live.

Tags: Choice, Life, Making

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

Tags: Blockhead, Except, Money

No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.

Tags: Flowers, Spring, While

By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.

Tags: Life, Seen, Show

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.

Tags: Happiness, Life, Nature

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

Tags: Cannot, Him, Wise

Actions are visible, though motives are secret.

Tags: Actions, Secret, Though

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

Tags: Almost, Life, Qualities

The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.

Tags: General, Happiest, Impression

The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.

Tags: Contempt, Fortune, Pity

What is easy is seldom excellent.

Tags: Easy, Excellent, Seldom

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.

Tags: End, Happy, Home

Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

Tags: Chance, Jail, Ship

It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.

Tags: May, Perfection, Though

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

Tags: Kinds, Knowledge, Ourselves

Language is the dress of thought.

Tags: Dress, Language, Thought

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.

Tags: Broken, Strong, Until

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

Tags: Great, Requisite

To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.

Tags: Keep, Others, Wisdom
Visit partners pages
Visit partners pages
Much more quotes by Samuel Johnson below the page.

Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.

Tags: Adversity, Himself, State

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

Tags: Enemy, Great, Happiness

You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

Tags: Leave, Life, Tired

Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.

Tags: Bed, Clock, Thinks

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.

Tags: Him, Others, Wine

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

Tags: Love, Wisdom, Wise

To love one that is great, is almost to be great one's self.

Tags: Great, Love, Self

Love is only one of many passions.

Tags: Love, Passions

Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.

Tags: Nature, Power, Women

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

Tags: Genius, Himself, Seldom

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

Tags: Book, Library, Turn

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

Tags: Art, Poetry, Truth

Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.

Tags: Life, Often, Spend

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

Tags: Locked, Motion, Wine

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

Tags: Allow, Children, Happy

Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

Tags: Best, Cannot, True

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.

Tags: Between, Poor, Rich

I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him.

Tags: Great, Human, Nature

My dear friend, clear your mind of can't.

Tags: Clear, Friend, Mind

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.

Tags: Gold, Praise, Value

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

Tags: Equality, Happiness, Human

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.

Tags: Future, Hope, Mind

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.

Tags: Falsehood, Lying, Truth

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

Tags: Cannot, Life, Society

Words are but the signs of ideas.

Tags: Ideas, Signs, Words

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.

Tags: Life, Money, Time

The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.

Tags: Advice, Wanted, Welcome

Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.

Tags: Few, Poor, Rich

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

Tags: Desire, Read, Written

A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.

Tags: Him, Horse, May

I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.

Tags: Dog, Rather, Show

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.

Tags: Lives, Short, Time

Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.

Tags: Life, Pass, Shall

No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.

Tags: Domestic, Laid, Money

All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.

Tags: Against, Experience, Freedom

Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.

Tags: Great, Knowledge, Might

Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.

Tags: Design, Difficult, Easy

No man was ever great by imitation.

Tags: Great, Imitation

Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

Tags: Fine, Meet, Read

There are charms made only for distant admiration.

Tags: Admiration, Charms, Distant

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

Tags: Effort, General, Read

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

Tags: Attempt, Fresh, Grief

You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

Tags: Company, Done, Wonder

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.

Tags: Knowledge, Truth, Wise

A am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice.

Tags: Friend, Great, Keep

A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.

Tags: Dinner, Seldom, Thinks

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

Tags: Conscious, Italy

Exercise is labor without weariness.

Tags: Exercise, Fitness, Labor

Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.

Tags: Few, Great, Power

He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.

Tags: Enjoy, Quit, Sunshine

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

Tags: Belly, Else, Mind

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

Tags: Human, Life, State

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

Tags: May, Men, Truth

It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.

Tags: Done, Might, Reflection

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.

Tags: Equality, Happy, Rather

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

Tags: Die, Rich

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.

Tags: Human, Place, Public

Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.

Tags: Drunk, Him, Life

Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.

Tags: Hopeless, Merriment, Scheme

Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.

Tags: Book, Hard, Lost

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

Tags: Feeling, Friendship, Love

The future is purchased by the present.

Tags: Future, Present, Purchased

The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.

Tags: Bed, Life, Morning

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

Tags: Art, Attention, True

The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.

Tags: Collection, Memory, Offices

The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty.

Tags: Compassion, Good, Strong

There are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits that are not good until they are rotten.

Tags: Good, Men, Until

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

Tags: Deceived, Inclined, Whom

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.

Tags: Diligence, Hope, Learn

When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation.

Tags: Mean, Pleasure, Woman

You can't be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who's for you and who's against you.

Tags: Against, Politics, Walk

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.

Tags: Alone, Friendship, Life

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

Tags: May

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

Tags: Good, Him, Read
Sualci Quotes friends