Quotes by Johnson, Samuel

"The habit of looking on the best side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a years."

Johnson, Samuel on habit   

"The chains of habit are generally too week to be felt, until they are too strong to be broken."

Johnson, Samuel on habit
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"Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness."

Johnson, Samuel on happiness   

"To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity."

Johnson, Samuel on happiness   

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"We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found; and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself."

Johnson, Samuel on happiness   

"Happiness is not a state to arrive at, rather, a manner of traveling."

Johnson, Samuel on happiness   

"For who is pleased with himself."

Johnson, Samuel on happiness   

"Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy."

Johnson, Samuel on heroes and heroism   

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"Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any degree; only about as much as is used in the lowest kinds of poetry. Some penetration, accuracy, and coloring, will fit a man for the task, if he can give the application which is necessary."

Johnson, Samuel on history and historians   

"It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honor, and fictitious benevolence."

Johnson, Samuel on home   

"No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction."

Johnson, Samuel on home   

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"The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope."

Johnson, Samuel on hope
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"Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment."

Johnson, Samuel on hope   

"Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords: but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged must end in disappointment."

Johnson, Samuel on hope
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"I hate mankind, for I think of myself as one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am."

Johnson, Samuel on humankind   

"I am a great friend to public amusements, for they keep the people from vice."

Johnson, Samuel on humor   

"It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them."

Johnson, Samuel on hunting   

"Sir, a man may be so much of everything, that he is nothing of anything."

Johnson, Samuel on identity
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"As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy."

Johnson, Samuel on idleness   

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"Perhaps man is the only being that can properly be called idle."

Johnson, Samuel on idleness   

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"Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess."

Johnson, Samuel on imagination   

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

Johnson, Samuel on imitation   

"No man was ever great by imitation."

Johnson, Samuel on imitation   

"I have protracted my work till most of those whom I wished to please have sunk into the grave, and success and miscarriage are empty sounds: I therefore dismiss it with frigid tranquillity, having little to fear or hope from censure or from praise."

Johnson, Samuel on indifference   

"So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other."

Johnson, Samuel on inequality   

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"No man is much regarded by the rest of the world. He that considers how little he dwells upon the condition of others, will learn how little the attention of others is attracted by himself. While we see multitudes passing before us, of whom perhaps not one appears to deserve our notice or excites our sympathy, we should remember, that we likewise are lost in the same throng, that the eye which happens to glance upon us is turned in a moment on him that follows us, and that the utmost which we can reasonably hope or fear is to fill a vacant hour with prattle, and be forgotten."

Johnson, Samuel on insignificance   

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

Johnson, Samuel on integrity
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"It is easy to talk of sitting at home contented, when others are seeing or making shows. But not to have been where it is supposed, and seldom supposed falsely, that all would go if they could; to be able to say nothing when everyone is talking; to have no opinion when everyone is judging; to hear exclamations of rapture without power to depress; to listen to falsehoods without right to contradict, is, after all, a state of temporary inferiority, in which the mind is rather hardened by stubbornness, than supported by fortitude. If the world be worth winning let us enjoy it, if it is to be despised let us despise it by conviction. But the world is not to be despised but as it is compared with something better."

Johnson, Samuel on involvement   

"I gleaned jests at home from obsolete farces."

Johnson, Samuel on jokes and jokers   

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"A Judge may be a farmer; but he is not to geld his own pigs. A Judge may play a little at cards for his own amusement; but he is not to play at marbles, or chuck farthing in the Piazza."

Johnson, Samuel on judgment and judges   

"To cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life."

Johnson, Samuel on kindness   

"To act from pure benevolence is not possible for finite human beings, Human benevolence is mingled with vanity, interest, or some other motive."

Johnson, Samuel on kindness   

"I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just."

Johnson, Samuel on kindness   

"The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it."

Johnson, Samuel on knowledge   

"More knowledge may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree and ended with his funeral."

Johnson, Samuel on knowledge   

"Man is not weak; knowledge is more than equivalent to force."

Johnson, Samuel on knowledge   

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

Johnson, Samuel on knowledge   

"Knowledge always demands increase; it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but will afterwards always propagate itself."

Johnson, Samuel on knowledge   

"Knowledge is more than equivalent to force."

Johnson, Samuel on knowledge   

"Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price."

Johnson, Samuel on labor