Samuel Johnson Quotes

To build is to be robbed.

A successful author is equally in danger of the diminution of his fame, whether he continues or ceases to write.

Of a thousand shavers, two do not shave so much alike as not to be distinguished.

There may be community of material possessions, but there can never be community of love or esteem.

Once a coxcomb, always a coxcomb.

Such is the emptiness of human enjoyment that we are always impatient of the present. Attainment is followed by neglect, and possession by disgust.

Though the discoveries or acquisitions of man are not always adequate to the expectations of his pride, they are at least sufficient to animate his industry.

It is wonderful what a difference learning makes upon people even in the common intercourse of life, which does not appear to be much connected with it.

I have adopted the Roman sentiment, that it is more honorable to save a citizen than to kill an enemy.

The relief of enemies has a tendency to unite mankind in fraternal affection.

As all error is meanness, it is incumbent on every man who consults his own dignity, to retract it as soon as he discovers it.

No man can have much kindness for him by whom he does not believe himself esteemed, and nothing so evidently proves esteem as imitation.

Such is the constitution of Man that labor may be said to be its own re-ward.

They who look but little into futurity, have, perhaps, the quickest sensation of the present.

Games are good or bad as to their nature; all may be perverted.

For gold the hireling judge distorts the laws.

The heroes of literary history have been no less remarkable for what they have suffered than for what they have achieved.

All history was at first oral.

Ignorance cannot always be inferred from inaccuracy; knowledge is not always present.

A man has no more right to say an uncivil thing than to act one; no more right to say a rude thing to another than to knock him down.

I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much.

The man who feels himself ignorant should, at least, be modest.

Peevishness may be considered the canker of life, that destroys its vigor and checks its improvement; that creeps on with hourly depredations, and taints and vitiates what it cannot consume.

Human reason borrowed many arts from the instinct of animals.

Our senses, our appetite, and our passions are our lawful and faithful guides in things that relate solely to this life.

Irresolution and mutability are often the faults of men whose views are wide, and whose imagination is vigorous and excursive.

A married man has many cares, but a bachelor no pleasures.

We consider ourselves as defective in memory, either because we remember less than we desire, or less than we suppose others to remember.

Pendantry is the unseasonable ostentation of learning. It may be discovered either in the choice of a subject or in the manner d treating it.

Instead of rating the man by his performances, we rate too frequently the performances by the man.

Of the present state, whatever it be, we feel and are forced to confess the misery; yet when the same state is again at a distance, imagination paints it as desirable.

The present is never a happy state to any human being.

The majority of a society is the true definition of the public.

When a man feel the reprehension of a friend seconded by his own heart, he is easily heated into resentment.

Scarce any man becomes eminently disagreeable but by a departure from his real character, and an attempt at something for which nature or education has left him unqualified.

Sir, there is no end of negative criticism.

The care of the critic should be to distinguish error from inability, faults of inexperience from defects of nature.

Economy is the parent of integrity, of liberty, and of ease, and the beauteous sister of temperance, of cheerfulness and health.

The prospect of penury in age is so gloomy and terrifying that every man who looks before him must resolve to avoid it; and it must be avoided generally by the science of sparing.

Who left nothing of authorship untouched, and touched nothing which he did not adorn. [Lat., Qui nullum fere scribendi genus non tetigit; nullum quod tetigit non ornavit.]

No evil is insupportable but that which is accompanied with consciousness of wrong.

Complaints are vain; we will try to. do better another time. To-morrow and to-morrow. A few designs and a few failures, and the time of designing is past.

Foppery is never cured; it is the bad stamina of the mind, which, like those of the body, are never rectified; once a coxcomb always a coxcomb.

How few of his friends' houses would a man choose to be at when he is sick.

The good of our present state is merely comparative, and the evil which every man feels will be sufficient to disturb and harass him if he does not know how much he escapes.

Every man that has felt pain knows how little all other comforts can gladden him to whom health is denied. Yet who is there does not sometimes hazard it for the enjoyment of an hour?

None are happy but by anticipation of change.

Nothing is more idle than to inquire after happiness, which nature has kindly placed within our reach.

So scanty is our present allowance of happiness that in many situations life could scarcely be supported if hope were not allowed to relieve the present hour by pleasures borrowed from the future.

Terrestrial happiness is of short duration. The brightness of the flame is wasting its fuel; the fragrant flower is passing away in its own odors.