Samuel Johnson Quotes
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To convince any man against his will is hard, but to please him against his will is justly pronounced by Dryden to be above the reach of human abilities.
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Shakspeare never has six lines together without a fault. Perhaps you may find seven: but this does not refute my general assertion.
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Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.
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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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Johnson observed, that 'he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney.'
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An age that melts in unperceiv'd decay,And glides in modest innocence away.
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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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Those writers who lay on the watch for novelty, could have little hope of greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former observation.
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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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Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.
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It is as bad as bad can be: it is ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-drest.
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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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His conversation does not show the minute-hand, but he strikes the hour very correctly.
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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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A very unclubable man.
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I know not whether more is to be dreaded from streets filled with soldiers accustomed to plunder, or from garrets filled with scribblers accustomed to lies.
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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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Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him; and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities; as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight.
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But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.
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New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new.
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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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To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.
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There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.
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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.