Samuel Johnson Quotes

Cucumber should be well sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

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

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.

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

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

A man who uses a great many words to express his meaning is like a bad marksman who, instead of aiming a single stone at an object, takes up a handful and throws at it in hopes he may hit.

There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

Exert your talents, and distinguish yourself, and don't think of retiring from the world, until the world will be sorry that you retire.

Order is a lovely nymph, the child of Beauty and Wisdom; her attendants are Comfort, Neatness, and Activity; her abode is the valley of happiness: she is always to be found when sought for, and never appears so lovely as when contrasted with her opponent, Disorder.

He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dulness in others.

When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.

Every man is, or hopes to be, an idler.

I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.

I should as soon think of contradicting a bishop

Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him; and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities; as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight.

Exercise is labor without weariness.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

He that outlives a wife whom he has long loved, sees himself disjoined from the only mind that has the same hopes, and fears, and interest; from the only companion with whom he has shared much good and evil; and with whom he could set his mind at liberty, to retrace the past or anticipate the future. The continuity of being is lacerated; the settled course of sentiment and action is stopped; and life stands suspended and motionless.

If the man who turnips cries, Cry not when his father dies, 'Tis proof that he had rather Have a turnip than his father.

The future is purchased by the present.

Oratory is the power of beating down your adversary's arguments and putting better in their place.

We may have uneasy feelings for seeing a creature in distress without pity; for we have not pity unless we wish to relieve them.

When emulation leads us to strive for self-elevation by merit alone, and not by belittling another, then it is one of the grandest possible incentives to action.

The excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some useful truth in a few words.

He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind than the strokes of the oar; and many fold in their passage; while they lie waiting for the gale.

The resolution of the combat is seldom equal to the vehemence of the charge.

I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over a ditch and tumbling into it

Where there is emulation, there will be vanity; where there is vanity, there will be folly.

Poverty is often concealed in splendor, and often in extravagance. It is the task of many people to conceal their neediness from others. Consequently they support themselves by temporary means, and everyday is lost in contriving for tomorrow.

Why, sir, Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, Sir, is not in Nature.

Unintelligible language is a lantern without a light.

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it.

If in an actor there appears an utter vacancy of meaning, a frigid equality, a stupid languor, a torpid apathy, the greatest kindness that can be shown him is a speedy sentence of expulsion.

A mere literary man is a dull man; a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man; but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.

I am not able to instruct you. I can only tell that I have chosen wrong. I have passed my time in study without experience; in the attainment of sciences which can, for the most part, be but remotely useful to mankind. I have purchased knowledge at the expense of all the common comforts of life: I have missed the endearing elegance of female friendship, and the happy commerce of domestic tenderness.

No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction. A man is pleased that his wife is dressed as well as other people, and the wife is pleased that she is dressed.

To fix the thoughts by writing, and subject them to frequent examinations and reviews, is the best method of enabling the mind to detect its own sophisms, and keep it on guard against the fallacies which it practices on others

A transition from an author's book to his conversation is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur, and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke.

The habit of looking on the bright side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.

A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him who he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society.

Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.

No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.

Our aspirations are our possibilities.