Samuel Johnson Quotes
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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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What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
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What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
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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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Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
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Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.
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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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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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I am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice.
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With these celestial Wisdom calms the mind,And makes the happiness she does not find.
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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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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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Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate,Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?
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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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Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.
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Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.
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A frame of adamant, a soul of fire,No dangers fright him, and no labors tire.
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Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.
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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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Was ever poet so trusted before?
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The limbs will quiver and move after the soul is gone.
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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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While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.
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I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney.