Samuel Johnson Quotes
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Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.
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Attack is the reaction; I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds.
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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.
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I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject.
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Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.
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The Churchyard abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo.
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The future is purchased by the present.
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Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes,And pause a while from learning to be wise.There mark what ills the scholar's life assail - Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.
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No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
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So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.
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I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.
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Of Lord Chesterfield This man, I thought, had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!
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Blown about with every wind of criticism.
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Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and... the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.
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Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything.
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Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.
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There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed.
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To let friendship die away by negligence and silence, is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary pilgrimage.
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There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.
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Mrs. Montagu has dropt me. Now, Sir, there are people whom one should like very well to drop, but would not wish to be dropped by.