Samuel Johnson Quotes

The desires of man increase with his acquisitions.

You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.

It may be laid down as a position which seldom deceives, that when a man cannot bear his own company, there is something wrong.

Cowardice encroaches fast upon such as spend their lives in company of persons higher than themselves.

The world is not yet exhausted: let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.

Where necessity ends, desire and curiosity begin; and no sooner are we supplied with everything nature can demand than we sit down to contrive artificial appetites.

The coquette has companions, indeed, but no lovers,--for love is respectful and timorous; and where among her followers will she find a husband?

To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire and answer inquiries, is the business of the scholar

It is almost always the unhappiness of a victorious disputant to destroy his own authority by claiming too many consequences, or diffusing his proposition to an indefensible extent.

Differences, we know, are never so effectually laid asleep as by some common calamity; an enemy unites all to whom he threatens danger.

Moderation is commonly firm, and firmness is commonly successful.

Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage, Till pitying Nature signs the last release, And bids afflicted worth retire to peace.

Ladies, stock and tend your hive, Trifle not at thirty-five; For, howe'er we boast and strive, Life declines from thirty-five; He that ever hopes to thrive Must begin by thirty-five.

This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.

There is nothing against which an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse.

Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice, that we, for the most part, summon our powers to oppose it without any very accurate inquiry whether it is right.

Advice is offensive, it shows us that we are known to others as well as to ourselves.

Admiration must be continued by that novelty which first produces it; and how much soever is given, there must always be reason to imagine that more remains.

Scarcely any degree of judgment is sufficient to restrain the imagination from magnifying that on which it is long detained

I wish there were some cure, like the lover's leap, for all heads of which some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession.

Whoever rises above those who once pleased themselves with equality, will have many malevolent gazers at his eminence.

Mutual cowardice keeps us in peace.

To excite opposition and inflame malevolence is the unhappy privilege of courage made arrogant by consciousness of strength.

Madam, before you flatter a man so grossly to his face, you should consider whether or not your flattery is worth his having.

Pain and disease awaken us to convictions which are necessary to our moral condition.

Politeness is fictitious benevolence.

I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.

An Englishman is content to say nothing when he has nothing to say.

When people find a man of the most distinguished abilities as a writer their inferior while he is with them, it must be highly gratifying to them.

There is no being so poor and so contemptible, who does not think there is somebody still poorer, and still more contemptible.

Lawful and settled authority is very seldom resisted when it is well employed.

Attack is the reaction. I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds.

In the description of night in Macbeth, the beetle and the bat detract from the general idea of darkness - inspissated gloom.

One cause, which is not always observed, of the insufficiency of riches, is that they very seldom make their owner rich.

It is easy for a man who sits idle at home, and has nobody to please but himself, to ridicule or censure the common practices of mankind.

Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled.

The difference between coarse and refined abuse is the difference between being bruised by a club and wounded by a poisoned arrow.

Diligence in employments of less consequence is the most successful introduction to greater enterprises.

The real satisfaction which praise can afford, is when what is repeated aloud agrees with the whispers of conscience, by showing us that we have not endeavored to deserve well in vain.

Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity.

Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance, and the parent of Liberty.

The mind is seldom quickened to very vigorous operations but by pain, or the dread of pain. We do not disturb ourselves with the detection of fallacies which do us no harm.

He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale.

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.

Conjecture as to things useful, is good; but conjecture as to what it would be useless to know, is very idle.

I remember a passage in Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield," which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: "I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing.

The arguments for purity of life fail of their due influence, not because they have been considered and confuted, but because they have been passed over without consideration.

His most frequent ailment was the headache which he used to relieve by inhaling the steam of coffee.

He who writes much will not easily escape a manner, such a recurrence of particular modes as may be easily noted.

There should be a stated day for commemorating the birthday of our Savior, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected.