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Samuel Johnson Quotes
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About Samuel Johnson
 Life: 1709 - 1784 Country:  England Profession: Critic; Writer; Samuel Johnson LL.D. MA (September 18 [O.S. September 7] 1709 - 13 December 1784), often referred to simply as Dr Johnson, is one of England's best known literary figures: an essayist, biographer, lexicographer and a critic of English Literature. He was also a great wit and prose stylist, well known for his aphorisms. Dr Johnson is the most quoted English writer after Shakespeare and has been described as one of the outstanding figures of 18th-century England.
more... QuotationsPromise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement. ~ Samuel Johnson - The Idler, 1759
Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable. ~ Samuel Johnson
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble. ~ Samuel Johnson
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. ~ Samuel Johnson
I am willing to love all mankind, except an American. ~ Samuel Johnson - in James Boswell, Life of Johnson, April 15, 1778
I am a great friend to public amusements, for they keep people from vice.
~ Samuel Johnson
We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting. ~ Samuel Johnson
Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them. ~ Samuel Johnson
... generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition. ~ Samuel Johnson
Avarice is always poor. ~ Samuel Johnson
He who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do anything. ~ Samuel Johnson
There are charms made only for distant admiration. ~ Samuel Johnson
The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity. ~ Samuel Johnson
Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions. ~ Samuel Johnson
The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little. ~ Samuel Johnson
The lustre of diamonds is invigorated by the interposition of darker bodies; the lights of a picture are created by the shades; the highest pleasure which nature has indulged to sensitive perception is that of rest after fatigue. ~ Samuel Johnson
Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing. ~ Samuel Johnson
Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well. ~ Samuel Johnson
The difference between coarse and refined abuse is the difference between being bruised by a club and wounded by a poisoned arrow. ~ Samuel Johnson
Do not accustom yourself to consider debt only as an inconvenience; you will find it a calamity. ~ Samuel Johnson
No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance. ~ Samuel Johnson
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence. ~ Samuel Johnson
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill ... Great works are performed, not by strength, but perseverance. ~ Samuel Johnson
Disease is a physical process that generally begins that equality which death completes. ~ Samuel Johnson
Without economy none can be rich, and with it few will be poor. ~ Samuel Johnson
Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present. ~ Samuel Johnson
The liberty of the press is a blessing when we are inclined to write against others, and a calamity when we find ourselves overborne by the multitude of our assailants. ~ Samuel Johnson
If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone; one should keep his friendships in constant repair. ~ Samuel Johnson
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it. ~ Samuel Johnson
Guilt once harbored in the conscious breast, intimidates the brave, degrades the great. ~ Samuel Johnson
The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. ~ Samuel Johnson
There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern. ~ Samuel Johnson
Money and time are the heaviest burdens in life: and among mortals, those who are most unhappy are the ones who have more than they need. ~ Samuel Johnson
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords. ~ Samuel Johnson
No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures. ~ Samuel Johnson
Every man is, or hopes to be, an idler. ~ Samuel Johnson
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. ~ Samuel Johnson
Ignorance cannot always be inferred from inaccuracy; knowledge is not always present. ~ Samuel Johnson
Were it not for imagination, a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as a dutchess. ~ Samuel Johnson
No man ever yet became great by imitation. ~ Samuel Johnson
He is no wise man who will quit a certainty for an uncertainty. ~ Samuel Johnson
No two men can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other. ~ Samuel Johnson
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