Samuel Johnson Quotes
-
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.
-
A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden.
-
As with my hat upon my headI walk'd along the Strand,I there did meet another manWith his hat in his hand.
-
He that overvalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them.
-
I am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those they provoke.
-
Every state of society is as luxurious as it can be. Men always take the best they can get.
-
Life admits not of delays; when pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it. Every hour takes away part of the things that please us, and perhaps part of our disposition to be pleased.
-
Round numbers are always false.
-
The act of writing itself distracts the thoughts, and what is read twice is commonly better remembered than what is transcribed.
-
A Frenchman must be always talking, whether he knows anything of the matter or not; an Englishman is content to say nothing, when he has nothing to say.
-
He left the name at which the world grew pale,To point a moral, or adorn a tale.
-
It is man's own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age.
-
The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.
-
Employment, sir, and hardships prevent melancholy.
-
The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.
-
Let observation with extensive viewSurvey mankind, from China to Peru.
-
Here's to the next insurrection of the negroes in the West Indies.
-
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.
-
Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.
-
There is in this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality), but exchange of ideas in conversation.
-
A thousand horrid Prodigies foretold it.A feeble government, eluded Laws,A factious Populace, luxurious Nobles,And all the maladies of stinking states.
-
'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.
-
I have, all my life long, been lying till noon; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good.
-
If lawyers were to undertake no causes till they were sure they were just, a man might be precluded altogether from a trial of his claim, though, were it judicially examined, it might be found a very just claim.