Samuel Johnson Quotes
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There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.
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The limbs will quiver and move after the soul is gone.
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Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
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There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern... No, Sir; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.
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Merriment is always the effect of a sudden impression. The jest which is expected is already destroyed.
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He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.
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Actions are visible, though motives are secret.
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Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.
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I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.
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By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.
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I never take a nap after dinner but when I have had a bad night; and then the nap takes me.
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Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature.
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Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.
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Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
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Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.
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Unmoved though Witlings sneer and Rivals rail, Studious to please, yet not ashamed to fail. He scorns the meek address, the suppliant strain. With merit needless, and without it vain. In Reason, Nature, Truth, he dares to trust: Ye Fops, be silent: and ye Wits, be just.
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The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.
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Language is the dress of thought.
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We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.
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Hell is paved with good intentions.
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To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.
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Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.
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Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
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No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.