Quotes by Johnson, Samuel

"Labor, if it were not necessary for existence, would be indispensable for the happiness of man."

Johnson, Samuel on labor   

"Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas."

Johnson, Samuel on language   

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

Johnson, Samuel on language   

"Language is the dress of thought."

Johnson, Samuel on language
7 fans of this quote   

"What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of the rest of the company."

Johnson, Samuel on laughter   

"Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with."

Johnson, Samuel on law and lawyers   

"I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney."

Johnson, Samuel on law and lawyers   

"Turn on the prudent ant thy heedful eyes. Observe her labors, sluggard, and be wise."

Johnson, Samuel on laziness   

"Their learning is like bread in a besieged town: every man gets a little, but no man gets a full meal."

Johnson, Samuel on learning   

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

Johnson, Samuel on leisure   

"In a man's letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process. Nothing is inverted, nothing distorted, you see systems in their elements, you discover actions in their motives."

Johnson, Samuel on letters   

"A short letter to a distant friend is, in my opinion, an insult like that of a slight bow or cursory salutation -- a proof of unwillingness to do much, even where there is a necessity of doing something."

Johnson, Samuel on letters   

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

Johnson, Samuel on libraries
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"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."

Johnson, Samuel on life   

"We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting."

Johnson, Samuel on anticipation   

"Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them."

Johnson, Samuel on anticipation   

"Nothing is more common than mutual dislike, where mutual approbation is particularly expected."

Johnson, Samuel on antipathy   

"The applause of a single human being is of great consequence."

Johnson, Samuel on approval   

"Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea."

Johnson, Samuel on army and navy   

"No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned. A man in a jail has more room, better food and commonly better company."

Johnson, Samuel on army and navy   

"Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise."

Johnson, Samuel on love
3 fans of this quote   

"By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time."

Johnson, Samuel on marriage   

"It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination."

Johnson, Samuel on marriage   

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"Marriage is the best state for man in general, and every man is a worst man in proportion to the level he is unfit for marriage."

Johnson, Samuel on marriage
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"There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman."

Johnson, Samuel on marriage   

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"Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures."

Johnson, Samuel on marriage   

"I would advise you Sir, to study algebra, if you are not already an adept in it: your head would be less muddy, and you will leave off tormenting your neighbors about paper and packthread, while we all live together in a world that is bursting with sin and sorrow."

Johnson, Samuel on mathematics   

"Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking."

Johnson, Samuel on melancholy   

"The true art of memory is the art of attention."

Johnson, Samuel on memory   

"What is read twice is usually remembered more than what is once written."

Johnson, Samuel on memory
3 fans of this quote   

"Men know that women are an over-match for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves."

Johnson, Samuel on women   

"The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased."

Johnson, Samuel on physics   

"There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful."

Johnson, Samuel on mind   

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"Do not discourage your children from hoarding, if they have a taste to it; whoever lays up his penny rather than part with it for a cake, at least is not the slave of gross appetite; and shows besides a preference always to be esteemed, of the future to the present moment."

Johnson, Samuel on misers and misery   

"Count on it, if a person talks of their misfortune, there is something in it that is not disagreeable to them."

Johnson, Samuel on misfortunes   

"That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one."

Johnson, Samuel on mistakes   

"Whatever you have spend less."

Johnson, Samuel on money   

"There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money."

Johnson, Samuel on money   

"Cruel with guilt, and daring with despair, the midnight murderer bursts the faithless bar; invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a dagger in your breast."

Johnson, Samuel on murder   

"Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible."

Johnson, Samuel on music