Samuel Johnson

No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.

Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.

The Irish are a fair people - they never speak well of one another.

As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.

Of all the griefs that harass the distrest,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.

You must have taken great pains, sir; you could not naturally been so very stupid.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere.

Being in a ship is like being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

I would rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.

Our aspirations are our possibilities.

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

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.

Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.

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

A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair.

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

There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.

He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.
Samuel Johnson - (attributed)
Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good.

You teach your daugthers the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

A cucumber should be well-sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out.
Samuel Johnson - Life of Boerhaave
Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult.

The Irish are a fair people - they never speak well of one another

Americans are a race of convicts and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.

A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

Golf is a game in which you claim the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood.

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
Samuel Johnson - Lives of the Poets
What we hope ever to do with ease we may learn first to do with diligence.

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

Grief is a species of idleness.
Samuel Johnson - Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791)
It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

The world is not yet exhaused; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.
Samuel Johnson - Taxation No Tyranny
There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.

You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument.

While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.

The Irish are a fair people - they never speak well of one another.

To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.
Samuel Johnson - Letter to Lord Chesterfield, 1775
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.

Hope is necessary in every condition.

Abstinence is as easy to me, as temperance would be difficult.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed.

I hate mankind, for I think of myself as one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.
Samuel Johnson - Rambler #18
There is no observation more frequently made by such as employ themselves in surveying the conduct of mankind, than that marriage, though the dictate of nature, and the institution of Providence, is yet very often the cause of misery, and that those who enter into that state can seldom forbear to express their repentance, and their envy of those whom either chance or caution hath withheld from it.
Samuel Johnson - A Dictionary of the English Language
Oats. A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.

I have found you an argument: but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

If you are idle, be not solitary. If you are solitary, be not idle.

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.

When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality.
Samuel Johnson - (attributed)
A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.
Samuel Johnson - Rasselas
Such is the common process of marriage. A youth and maiden exchange meeting by chance, or brought together by artifice, exchange glances, reciprocate civilities, go home, and dream of one another. Having little to divert attention, or diversify thought, they find themselves uneasy when they are apart, and therefore conclude that they shall be happy together. They marry, and discover what nothing but voluntary blindness had before concealed; they wear out life in altercations, and charge nature with cruelty.

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.

Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.
Samuel Johnson - (attributed; also attributed to Ann Landers)
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

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

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

Hope itself is a species of happiness, and perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.

- Samuel Johnson