Samuel Johnson

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

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

Every man who attacks my belief diminishes in some degree my confidence in it and therefore makes me uneasy, and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy.

If your determination is fixed I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed, not by strength, but perseverance.

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

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.

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality and, instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

It is dangerous for mortal beauty or terrestrial virtue to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot and all that we would not see.

All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil, show it evidently to be a great evil.

Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.

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

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

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.

Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.

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

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

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

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.

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

He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.

He who praises everybody praises nobody.

What is easy is seldom excellent.

Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.

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

You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay you do more good to them by spending it in luxury than by giving it, for by spending it in luxury you make them exert industry whereas by giving it you keep them idle.

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do is valuable.

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

Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time which will never return.

Words are but the signs of ideas.

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.

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

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

No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail, for being in a ship is being in a jail with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room better food and commonly better company.

When a man is tired of London he is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford.

No man was ever great by imitation.

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.

Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation but the only riches she can call her own.

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.

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

Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him, for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found and each believes it possessed by others to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

Courage is the greatest of all virtues because if you haven't courage you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.

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.

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.

Worth seeing? Yes, but not worth going to see.

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.

Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.

The return of my birthday if I remember it fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.

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

By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first by showing that she made him so happy as a married man that he wishes to be so a second time.

Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.

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

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

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

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.

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

Prepare for death if here at night you roam and sign your will before you sup from home.

There are charms made only for distant admiration.

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

He that undervalues himself will undervalue others and he that undervalues others will oppress them.

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

I look upon every day to be lost in which I do not make a new acquaintance.

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

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

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.

Actions are visible though motives are secret.

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

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.

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

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

Kindness is in our power even when fondness is not.

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.

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

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

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

At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.

Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.

Promise large promise is the soul of an advertisement.

It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.

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

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others and his idleness from himself.

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.

If pleasure was not followed by pain who would forbear it?

There is indeed nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.

The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.

There are few things that we so unwillingly give up even in advanced age as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex.

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

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

Exercise is labor without weariness.

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

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

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

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

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

I am a great friend of public amusements - they keep people from vice.

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

So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal that no two people can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

The world is seldom what it seems, to man who dimly sees realities appear as dreams and dreams realities.

Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.

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

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

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

Love is only one of many passions.

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

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.

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

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

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.

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

To get a name can happen but to few, it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind which must be deserved before it will be granted and is at last unwillingly bestowed.

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.

There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern... No Sir, there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.

To strive with difficulties and to conquer them is the highest human felicity.

When men come to like a sea-life they are not fit to live on land.

There is nothing Sir too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

Books that you carry to the fire and hold readily in your hand are most useful after all.

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

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

Language is the dress of thought.

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

Revenge is an act of passion, vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged, crimes are avenged.

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

We love to expect and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified we want to be again expecting.

What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before prove false again? Two hundred more.

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.

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

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

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties passing from one step of success to another forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.

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

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

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

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

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

When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is how much has been escaped.

Adversity leads us to think properly of our state and so is most beneficial to us.

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

Man alone is born crying lives complaining and dies disappointed.

The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure but from hope to hope.

There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.

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

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

My dear friend clear your mind of can't.

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

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

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both but by too much prudence may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.

The world is like a grand staircase some are going up and some are going down.

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

Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

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

It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.

Melancholy indeed should be diverted by every means but drinking.

Life is a progress from want to want not from enjoyment to enjoyment.

Such is the state of life that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing, when we have made it the next wish is to change again.

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

Let me smile with the wise and feed with the rich.

The future is purchased by the present.

I have found men to be more kind than I expected and less just.

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it but I am afraid he is an attorney.

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

I will be conquered, I will not capitulate.

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

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

That we must all die we always knew, I wish I had remembered it sooner.

From the middle of life onward only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life.

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

So many objections may be made to everything that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.

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.

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

Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.

Of all noises I think music is the least disagreeable.

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.

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

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.