Quotes by Johnson, Samuel

"Worth seeing? Yes; but not worth going to see."

Johnson, Samuel on travel   

"As the Spanish proverb says, He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him. So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge."

Johnson, Samuel on travel   

"Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree. We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us."

Johnson, Samuel on trust   

"No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it. There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government."

Johnson, Samuel on tyranny   

"Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding."

Johnson, Samuel on understanding   

"To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself."

Johnson, Samuel on unemployment   

"The world will never be long without some good reason to hate the unhappy; their real faults are immediately detected, and if those are not sufficient to sink them into infamy, an additional weight of calumny will be super added."

Johnson, Samuel on happiness   

"Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity."

Johnson, Samuel on value   

"The longer we live the more we think and the higher the value we put on friendship and tenderness towards parents and friends."

Johnson, Samuel on value   

"There is nothing so much seduces reason from vigilance as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman in marriage."

Johnson, Samuel on vigilance   

"The wise man applauds he who he thinks most virtuous; the rest of the world applauds the wealthy."

Johnson, Samuel on virtue   

"Virtue is too often merely local."

Johnson, Samuel on virtue   

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"Wickedness is always easier than virtue, for it takes a short cut to everything."

Johnson, Samuel on virtue   

"A vow is a snare for sin."

Johnson, Samuel on vow   

"A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization."

Johnson, Samuel on welfare   

"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."

Johnson, Samuel on widowhood   

"Wine gives a man nothing. It neither gives him knowledge nor wit; it only animates a man, and enables him to bring out what a dread of the company has repressed. It only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost."

Johnson, Samuel on wine   

"Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others... This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts."

Johnson, Samuel on wine   

"He is no wise man who will quit a certainty for an uncertainty."

Johnson, Samuel on wisdom   

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"He who has provoked the shaft of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it."

Johnson, Samuel on wit   

"A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek."

Johnson, Samuel on wives   

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"Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little."

Johnson, Samuel on women   

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"All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance."

Johnson, Samuel on wonder   

"It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharge of any profession."

Johnson, Samuel on work   

"That observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good."

Johnson, Samuel on world   

"Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements."

Johnson, Samuel on writers and writing   

"I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much."

Johnson, Samuel on writers and writing   

"In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness."

Johnson, Samuel on writers and writing   

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"The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over half a library to make one book."

Johnson, Samuel on writers and writing
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"It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust."

Johnson, Samuel on wrong   

"So different are the colors of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side."

Johnson, Samuel on youth   

"Youth enters the world with very happy prejudices in her own favor. She imagines herself not only certain of accomplishing every adventure, but of obtaining those rewards which the accomplishment may deserve. She is not easily persuaded to believe that the force of merit can be resisted by obstinacy and avarice, or its luster darkened by envy and malignity."

Johnson, Samuel on youth   

"Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity."

Johnson, Samuel on christians and christianity   

"This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive."

Johnson, Samuel on churches   

"Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home."

Johnson, Samuel on life   

"The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty."

Johnson, Samuel on passion   

"The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity."

Johnson, Samuel on complaints and complaining   

"Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him."

Johnson, Samuel on complaints and complaining   

"Hunger is never delicate; they who are seldom gorged to the full with praise may be safely fed with gross compliments, for the appetite must be satisfied before it is disgusted."

Johnson, Samuel on compliments   

"Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions."

Johnson, Samuel on compromise