Samuel Johnson Quotes
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The act of writing itself distracts the thoughts, and what is read twice is commonly better remembered than what is transcribed.
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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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Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.
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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.
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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 is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in others.
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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.
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I am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those they provoke.
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That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?
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A country governed by a despot is an inverted cone.
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He that overvalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them.
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'Some,' answered Imlac, 'have indeed said that the soul is material, but I can scarcely believe that any man has thought it, who knew how to think; for all the conclusions of reason enforce the immateriality of mind, and all the notices of sense and investigations of science, concur to prove the unconsciousness of matter.
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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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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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'I fly from pleasure,' said the prince, 'because pleasure has ceased to please; I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others.'
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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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I refute it thus.
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Mrs. Montagu has dropt me. Now, Sir, there are people whom one should like very well to drop, but would not wish to be dropped by.
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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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He left the name at which the world grew pale,To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
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The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.
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There is now less flogging in our great schools than formerly, but then less is learned there; so that what the boys get at one end they lose at the other.
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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.