Samuel Johnson Quotes

We seldom require more to the happiness of the present hour than to surpass him that stands next before us.

I wish you would add an index rerum, that when the reader recollects any incident he may easily find it.

The seeds of knowledge may be planted in solitude, but must be cultivated in public.

Life, however short, is made still shorter by waste of time.

Misfortunes should always be expected.

The commodiousness of money is indeed great; but there are some advantages which money cannot buy, and which therefore no wise man will by the love of money be tempted to forego.

In all political regulations, good cannot be complete, it can only be predominant.

What is said upon a subject is gathered from an hundred people.

More is learned in a public than in a private school, from emulation. There is the collision of mind with mind, or the radiation of many minds pointing to one center.

To go and see one druidical temple is only to see that it is nothing, for there is neither art nor power in it; and seeing one is quite enough.

Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world.

Self-love is a busy prompter.

Corneille is to Shakespeare as a clipped hedge is to a forest.

In his comic scenes, Shakespeare seems to produce, without labor, what no labor can improve.

It was said of Euripides, that every verse was a precept; and it may be said of Shakespeare, that from his works may be collected a system of civil and economical prudence.

The stream of Time, which is continually washing the dissoluble fabrics of other poets, passes without injury by the adamant of Shakespeare.

Preserve me from unseasonable and immoderate sleep.

Even those to whom Providence has allotted greater strength of understanding can expect only to improve a single science.

A man who always talks for fame never can be pleasing. The man who talks to unburthen his mind is the man to delight you.

Thought is always troublesome to him who lives without his own approbation.

A fallible being will fail somewhere.

A small country town is not the place in which one would choose to quarrel with a wife; every human being in such places is a spy.

Ancient travelers guessed; modern travelers measure.

Truth, such as is necessary to the reputation of life, is always found where it is honestly sought.

Political liberty is only good insofar as it produces private liberty.

Most men are more willing to indulge in easy vices than to practise laborious virtues.

All unnecessary vows are folly, because they suppose a prescience of the future, which has not been given us.

The king who makes war on his enemies tenderly distresses his subjects most cruelly.

Wasting a fortune is evaporation by a thousand imperceptible means.

You never find people laboring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful income.

Fate wings, with every wish, the afflictive dart, Each gift of nature, and each grace of art.

Wit is that which has been often thought, but never before was well expressed.

He who would have fine guests, let him have a fine wife.

Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet.

Men have been wise in many different modes; but they have always laughed the same way.

The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing.

The main of life is composed of small incidents and petty occurrences; of wishes for objects not remote, and grief for disappointments of no fatal consequence.

I do not much wish well to discoveries, for I am always afraid they will end in conquest and robbery.

Labor's face is wrinkled with the wind, and swarthy with the sun.

Condemned to Hope's delusive mine, As on we toil from day to day, By sudden blasts or slow decline Our social comforts drop away.

Pour forth thy fervors for a healthful mind, Obedient passions, and a will resigned

Nothing odd will do long. Tristram Shandy did not last.

Year chases year, decay pursues decay, Still drops some joy from with'ring life away; New forms arise, and diff'rent views engage

His virtues walked their narrow round, Nor made a pause, nor left a void; And sure the Eternal Master found The single talent well employed.

But grant, the virtues of a temp'rate prime Bless with an age exempt from scorn or crime; An age that melts with unperceived decay, And glides in modest Innocence away

There may be other reasons for a man's not speaking in publick than want of resolution: he may have nothing to say.

If the guardian or the mother Tell the woes of willful waste, Scorn their counsel and their pother, You can hang or drown at last.

It is incident to physicians, I am afraid, beyond all other men, to mistake subsequence for consequence.

Few moments are more pleasing than those in which the mind is concerting measures for a new undertaking.

Those who suppress freedom always do so in the name of law and order." - John V. Lindsay "No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.