Samuel Johnson Quotes

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Samuel Johnson

Profession : Writer

Birth : September 18, 1709

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

Samuel Johnson

Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon; of loud noise, but little danger.

Samuel Johnson

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

Samuel Johnson

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

Samuel Johnson

No man was ever great by imitation.

Samuel Johnson

Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.

Samuel Johnson

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

Samuel Johnson

What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.

Samuel Johnson

I am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice.

Samuel Johnson

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

Samuel Johnson

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

Samuel Johnson

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.

Samuel Johnson

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.

Samuel Johnson

Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again.

Samuel Johnson

Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.

Samuel Johnson

At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.

Samuel Johnson

Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.

Samuel Johnson

There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern... No, Sir; there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.

Samuel Johnson

So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.

Samuel Johnson

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

Samuel Johnson