Samuel Johnson Quotes
It is our first duty to serve society, and after we have done that, we may attend wholly to the salvation of our own souls.
Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.
The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.
There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.
I do not care to speak ill of a man behind his back, but I believe he is an attorney.
Sir, you must not neglect doing a thing immediately good from fear of remote evil; - from fear of its being abused.
He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.
Life is barren enough surely with all her trappings; let us be therefore cautious of how we strip her.
Philosophers there are who try to make themselves believe that this life is happy; but they believe it only while they are saying it, and never yet produced conviction in a single mind.
In life's last scene what prodigies surprise, Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise! From Marlborough's eyes the streams of dotage flow, And Swift expires a driveller and a show.
Rain is good for vegetables, and for the animals who eat those vegetables, and for the animals who eat those animals.
I have all my life long been lying in bed till noon; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good.
Evil is uncertain in the same degree as good, and for the reason that we ought not to hope too securely, we ought not to fear with to much dejection.
Almost all the moral good which is left among us is the apparent effect of physical evil.
He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds; but he that endeavors after it by false merit, has to fear, not only the violence of the storm, but the leaks of his vessel.
The violence of war admits no distinction; the lance, that is lifted at guilt and power, will sometimes fall on innocence and gentleness.
Age looks with anger on the temerity of youth, and youth with contempt on the scrupulosity of age.
I am very fond of the company of ladies. I like their beauty, I like their delicacy, I like their vivacity, and I like their silence.
Long customs are not easily broken; he that attempts to change the course of his own life very often labors in vain; and how shall we do that for others, which we are seldom able to do for ourselves.
The fiction of happiness is propagated by every tongue and confirmed by every look till at last all profess the joy which they do not feel and consent to yield to the general delusion.
If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.
Of all the grief's that harass the distressed; sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.
When female minds are embittered by age or solitude, their malignity is generally exerted in a rigorous and spiteful superintendence of domestic trifles.
As any action or posture, long continued, will distort and disfigure the limbs, so the mind likewise is crippled and contracted by perpetual application to the same set of ideas.
God Himself, sir, does not propose to judge a man until his life is over. Why should you and I?
Pleasure that is obtained by unreasonable and unsuitable cost must always end in pain.
Friendship is seldom lasting but between equals, or where the superiority on one side is reduced by some equivalent advantage on the other.
We all live upon the hope of pleasing somebody, and the pleasure of pleasing ought to be greatest, and at last always will be greatest, when our endeavours are exerted in consequence of our duty.