Samuel Johnson Quotes

A good wife is like the ivy which beautifies the building to which it clings, twining its tendrils more lovingly as time converts the ancient edifice into a ruin.

London! the needy villain's general home, The common sewer of Paris and of Rome! With eager thirst, by folly or by fate, Sucks in the dregs of each corrupted state.

Sir, he throws away his money without thought and without merit. I do not call a tree generous that sheds its fruit at every breeze.

Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy.

The history of mankind is little else than a narrative of designs which have failed and hopes that have been disappointed.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

Mutual cowardice keeps us in peace.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

Network. Anything reticulated or decussated at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.

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.

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

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

Moderation is commonly firm, and firmness is commonly successful.

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

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

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

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.

A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.

Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for any thing we allow them short of hanging.

Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.

Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded, for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.

Confidence is a plant of slow growth; especially in an aged bosom

Admiration and love are like being intoxicated with champagne; judgment and friendship are like being enlivened.

Music is the only sensual pleasure without vice.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.

The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.

Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil.

Before dinner men meet with great inequality of understanding.

In the bottle discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence.

The great source of pleasure is variety.