Samuel Johnson Quotes

Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write: a man will turn over half a library to make one book.

This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

Hell is paved with good intentions.

Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not because they are mistaken for realities, but because they bring realities to mind.

Shakespeare opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled with a mass of meaner minerales.

It is necessary to hope... for hope itself is happiness.

In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

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

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it.

There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable that I would not rather know it than not know it.

Ignorance, when voluntary, is criminal, and a man may be properly charged with that evil which he neglected or refused to learn how to prevent.

Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life . . . the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.

The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.

Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible. [on hearing a famous violinist]

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings." Samuel Johnson

At a certain point in her life, she realises it is not so much that she wants to have a child as that she does not want not to have a child, or not to have had a child.

our triumphant age of plenty is riddled with darker feelings of doubt, cynicism, distrust, boredom and a strange kind of emptiness

Nothing has more retarded the advancement of learning than the disposition of vulgar minds to ridicule and vilify what they cannot comprehend.

Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome." -

The true art of memory, is the art of attention

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.

Is there such depravity in man as that he should injure another without benefit to himself?

We have less reason to be surprised or offended when we find others differ from us in opinions because we very often differ from ourselves.

A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.

There is no problem the mind of man can set that the mind of man cannot solve.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.

Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance.

What cannot be repaired is not to be regretted.

I look upon every day to be lost in which I do not make a new acquaintance.

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilisation

To keep your secret is wisdom, but to expect others to keep it is folly.

PU'RIST: one superstitiously nice in the use of words.

(Adversity is) the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself being especially free from admirers then.

Adversity has ever been considered as the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself being free from flatterers.

Adversity leads us to think properly of our state and so is most beneficial to us.

Promise large promise is the soul of an advertisement.

A lexicographer a writer of dictionaries a harmless drudge.

Dictionaries are like watches. The worst is better than none at all and even the best cannot be expected to run quite true.

No member of a society has a right to teach any doctrine contrary to what society holds to be true.

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of everything.

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

Shame arises from the fear of man conscience from the fear of God.

That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition no vanity but a calm quiet interchange of sentiments.

Every man who attacks my belief diminishes in some degree my confidence in it and therefore makes me uneasy and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy.

Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected even when it is associated with vice.

Courage is the greatest of all the virtues. Because if you haven't courage you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.

Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected even when it is associated with vice.