Samuel Johnson Quotes
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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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Was ever poet so trusted before?
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The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.
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All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.
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With these celestial Wisdom calms the mind,And makes the happiness she does not find.
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The limbs will quiver and move after the soul is gone.
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Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.
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What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
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Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
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All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to shew how much he can spare.
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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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From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life.
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Norway, too, has noble wild prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious noble wild prospects. But, Sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!
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Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate,Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?
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I am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice.
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The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity... The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
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The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honourable gentleman has with such spirit and decency charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience.
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Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.
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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.
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There is in this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality), but exchange of ideas in conversation.
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Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.
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Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.
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A frame of adamant, a soul of fire,No dangers fright him, and no labors tire.
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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.