Samuel Johnson Quotes

The worst evils are those that never arrive.

People may be taken in once, who imagine that an author is greater in private life than other men.

History can be formed from permanent monuments and records; but lives can only be written from personal knowledge, which is growing every day less, and in a short time is lost forever.

Unconstraint is the grace of conversation.

A writer who obtains his full purpose loses himself in his own lustre.

Wealth is nothing in itself; it is not useful but when it departs from us.

In the motive lies the good or ill.

Gratitude is a species of justice.

No man hates him at whom he can laugh.

We love to overlook the boundaries which we do not wish to pass.

Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.

So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.

That we must all die, we always knew, I wish I had sooner remembred it.

The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.

Quotation is a good thing, there is a community of thought in it.

Virtue is too often merely local.

A book should teach us to enjoy life, or to endure it.

Life protracted is protracted woe.

In this work are exhibited, in a very high degree, the two most engaging powers of an author. New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new.

The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the praise of servants.

Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.

He who would govern his actions by the laws of virtue must regulate his thoughts by those of reason.

While an author is yet living, we estimate his powers by his worst performance; and when he is dead, we rate him by his best.

Life, to be worthy of a rational being, must be always in progression; we must always purpose to do more or better than in time past.

We go from anticipation to anticipation, not from satisfaction to satisfaction.

Parents are by no means exempt from the intoxication of dominion.

There is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the melody of birds, the whisper of groves, and the murmur of rivulets.

Reason will by degrees submit to absurdity, as the eye is in time accommodated to darkness.

The hour of reformation is always delayed; every delay gives vice another opportunity of fortifying itself by habit.

It may be observed in general that the future is purchased by the present. It is not possible to secure distant or permanent happiness but by the forbearance of some immediate gratification.

It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in want of money. It is clear, they have not value for what they spend.

The general remedy of those who are uneasy without knowing the cause is change of place.

Misery and shame are nearly allied.

Laws teach us to know when we commit injury and when we suffer it.

All power of fancy over reason is a degree of madness.

In sovereignty there are no gradations.

See nations slowly wise, and meanly just, to buried merit raise the tardy bust.

To buried merit rise the tardy bust.

Club: An assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions.

Happiness," said he, "must be something solid and permanent, without fear and without uncertainty.

Example is always more efficacious than precept.

Nothing is difficult, when gain and honour unite their influence.

An author places himself uncalled before the tribunal of criticism and solicits fame at the hazard of disgrace.

Commerce can never be at a stop while one man wants what another can supply; and credit will never be denied, while it is likely to be repaid with profit.

Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness.

Those authors who would find many readers, must endeavour to please while they instruct.

Those authors are to be read at schools that supply most axioms of prudence.

The future is bought with the present.

We are told, that the black bear is innocent; but I should not like to trust myself with him.

There must always be some advantage on one side or the other, and it is better that advantage should be had by talents than by chance.