Quotes by Johnson, Samuel

"A continual feast of commendation is only to be obtained by merit or by wealth: many are therefore obliged to content themselves with single morsels, and recompense the infrequency of their enjoyment by excess and riot, whenever fortune sets the banquet before them."

Johnson, Samuel on praise   

"A man who is good enough to go to heaven is not good enough to be a clergyman."

Johnson, Samuel on preachers and preaching   

"Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most."

Johnson, Samuel on preachers and preaching   

"Prejudice not being funded on reason cannot be removed by argument."

Johnson, Samuel on prejudice   

"Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages."

Johnson, Samuel on pride   

"He may justly be numbered among the benefactors of mankind, who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may early be impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to occur habitually to the mind."

Johnson, Samuel on proverbs   

"Prudence operates on life in the same manner as rule of composition; it produces vigilance rather than elevation; rather prevents loss than procures advantage; and often miscarriages, but seldom reaches either power or honor."

Johnson, Samuel on prudence   

"Prudence is an attitude that keeps life safe, but does not often make it happy."

Johnson, Samuel on prudence   

"Ah! Sir, a boy's being flogged is not so severe as a man's having the hiss of the world against him."

Johnson, Samuel on public opinion   

"Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen."

Johnson, Samuel on questions   

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

Johnson, Samuel on quotations   

"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."

Johnson, Samuel on quotations   

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

Johnson, Samuel on quotations   

"Surely life, if it be not long, is tedious, since we are forced to call in the assistance of so many trifles to rid us of our time, of that time which never can return."

Johnson, Samuel on creation   

"If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman."

Johnson, Samuel on creation   

"Why, Sir, most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things."

Johnson, Samuel on reform   

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"The blaze of reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket; a very few names may be considered as perpetual lamps that shine unconsumed."

Johnson, Samuel on reputation   

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"Attention and respect give pleasure, however late, or however useless. But they are not useless, when they are late, it is reasonable to rejoice, as the day declines, to find that it has been spent with the approbation of mankind."

Johnson, Samuel on respectability   

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"Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled."

Johnson, Samuel on respectability
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"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."

Johnson, Samuel on respectability   

"Don't think of retiring from the world until the world will be sorry that you retire. I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drive into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark."

Johnson, Samuel on retirement   

"Revenge is the act of passion, vengeance is an act of justice."

Johnson, Samuel on revenge
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"What ever the motive for the insult, it is always best to overlook it; for folly doesn't deserve resentment, and malice is punished by neglect."

Johnson, Samuel on revenge   

"And then, Sir, there is this consideration, that if the abuse be enormous, nature will rise up, and claiming her original rights, overturn a corrupt political system."

Johnson, Samuel on evolution   

"Some people wave their dogmatic thinking until their own reason is entangled."

Johnson, Samuel on rhetoric   

"It is better to live rich, than to die rich."

Johnson, Samuel on riches   

"One cause, which is not always observed, of the insufficiency of riches, is that they very seldom make their owner rich."

Johnson, Samuel on riches   

"It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in want of money. It is clear, they have not value for what they spend."

Johnson, Samuel on riches   

"There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, toil, envy, want, and patron."

Johnson, Samuel on scholars and scholarship   

"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."

Johnson, Samuel on scholars and scholarship   

"When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land."

Johnson, Samuel on sea   

"Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off."

Johnson, Samuel on secrets   

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

Johnson, Samuel on secrets
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"The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it."

Johnson, Samuel on secrets   

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"Security will produce danger."

Johnson, Samuel on security   

"That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own esteem."

Johnson, Samuel on self-esteem   

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"Self-love is often rather arrogant than blind; it does not hide our faults from ourselves, but persuades us that they escape the notice of others."

Johnson, Samuel on love   

"The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the praise of servants."

Johnson, Samuel on servants   

"Life will not bear refinement. You must do as other people do."

Johnson, Samuel on simplicity   

"Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim; and when you are calculating, calculate."

Johnson, Samuel on sincerity