Samuel Johnson Quotes

ESSAY - A loose sally of the mind; an irregular indigested piece; not a regular and orderly composition.

Samuel Johnson

• Mind

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Quotes to Explore

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

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Love
  • Wise
  • Fool

• It is commonly observed, that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather; they are in haste to tell each other, what each must already know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm.

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Cold
  • Calm

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

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Chance
  • Jail
  • Ship

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

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Life
  • Man
  • Almost

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

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Home
  • Death
  • Night

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

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Wise
  • Smile
  • Rich

• How small of all that human hearts endure,That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!Still to ourselves in every place consigned,Our own felicity we make or find.With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Small
  • Joy

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

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Mind
  • Hope
  • Pleasure

• 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.

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • May
  • Travel
  • Learn

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

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Think
  • You
  • Meet

• 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.

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Life
  • Nature
  • Knowledge

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

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Great
  • Love
  • For Her

• Worth seeing? Yes; but not worth going to see.

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • See
  • Worth
  • Seeing

• Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Men
  • Marriage
  • Married

• If the man who turnips cries,Cry not when his father dies,'Tis a proof that he had ratherHave a turnip than his father.

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Father

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

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Good
  • Man
  • Him

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

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Love
  • Friendship
  • For Her

• Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Marriage

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

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Strong
  • Broken
  • Habit

• 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.

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Great
  • Art
  • Happiness

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

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Life
  • Love
  • Necessary

• Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Drinking
  • Melancholy
  • Indeed

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

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Good
  • True
  • Man

• Love is only one of many passions.

  

  Samuel Johnson
  • Love
  • For Her
  • For Him