Samuel Johnson Quotes
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Let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known.
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In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
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Officious, innocent, sincere,Of every friendless name the friend.
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Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.
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A country governed by a despot is an inverted cone.
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Every state of society is as luxurious as it can be. Men always take the best they can get.
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No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.
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The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.
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A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority.
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'Paradise Lost' is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.
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The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
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A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.
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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.
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In misery's darkest cavern known,His useful care was ever nighWhere hopeless anguish pour'd his groan,And lonely want retir'd to die.
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The poet must write as the interpreter of nature and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of future generations, as a being superior to time and place.
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Hunting was the labour of the savages of North America, but the amusement of the gentlemen of England.
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He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in others.
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I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject.
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By Numbers here from Shame or Censure free,All Crimes are safe, but hated Poverty.This, only this, the rigid Law persues,This, only this, provokes the snarling Muse.
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If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.
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It is man's own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age.
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A desire for knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being, whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all he has to get knowledge.
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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.
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He was a very good hater.