Samuel Johnson Quotes
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No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.
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My friend was of opinion that when a man of rank appeared in that character as an author, he deserved to have his merit handsomely allowed.
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Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.
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That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.
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The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.
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I Boswell happened to say, it would be terrible if he should not find a speedy opportunity of returning to London, and be confined in so dull a place. JOHNSON: 'Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters. It would not be terrible, though I were to be detained some time here.'
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It might as well be said, 'Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.'
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Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties.
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The first years of man must make provision for the last.
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There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
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It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them.
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I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.
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Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young.
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PENSION - An allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.
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It is always observable that silence propagates itself, and that the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find any thing to say.
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A very unclubable man.
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New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new.
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It is seldom that we find either men or places such as we expect them. ... Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.
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Liberty is, to the lowest rank of every nation, little more than the choice of working or starving.
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Fly fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.
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Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings.
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Was there ever yet any thing written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?
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A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected.
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Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.