No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library. - Samuel Johnson
No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned. - Samuel Johnson
As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly. - Samuel Johnson
Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others. - Samuel Johnson
Our minds, like our bodies, are in continual flux; something is hourly lost, and something acquired. - Samuel Johnson
our triumphant age of plenty is riddled with darker feelings of doubt, cynicism, distrust, boredom and a strange kind of emptiness - Samuel Johnson
A cucumber should be well-sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out. - Samuel Johnson
Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life. - Samuel Johnson
No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves. - Samuel Johnson
The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it. - Samuel Johnson
The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it. - Samuel Johnson
Abstinence is as easy to me, as temperance would be difficult. - Samuel Johnson
A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness. - Samuel Johnson
Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life . . . the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use. - Samuel Johnson
Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true. - Samuel Johnson
Language is the dress of thought. - Samuel Johnson
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords. - Samuel Johnson
Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it. - Samuel Johnson
A write only begins a book.A reader finishes it. - Samuel Johnson
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure. - Samuel Johnson
Men are generally idle, and ready to satisfy themselves, and intimidate the industry of others, by calling that impossible which is only difficult. - Samuel Johnson
The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are. - Samuel Johnson
There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful. - Samuel Johnson
I hate mankind, for I think of myself as one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am. - Samuel Johnson
Why, Sir, if you were to read Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself. But you must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment. - Samuel Johnson
Every state of society is as luxurious as it can be. Men always take the best they can get. - Samuel Johnson
When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality. - Samuel Johnson
It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done. - Samuel Johnson
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind. - Samuel Johnson
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust. - Samuel Johnson
Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings." - Samuel Johnson
A woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all. - Samuel Johnson
Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome." - - Samuel Johnson
Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt. - Samuel Johnson
Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say. - Samuel Johnson
Whoever thou art that, not content with a moderate condition, imaginest happiness in royal magnificence, and dreamest that command or riches can feed the appetite of novelty with perpetual gratifications, survey the Pyramids, and confess thy folly! - Samuel Johnson
Anybody who thinks of going to bed before 12 o'clock is a scoundrel. - Samuel Johnson
Such seems to be the disposition of man, that whatever makes a distinction produces rivalry. - Samuel Johnson
The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it. - Samuel Johnson
I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am. - Samuel Johnson
Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance. - Samuel Johnson
Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters. - Samuel Johnson
Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. - Samuel Johnson
The world is not yet exhaused; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before. - Samuel Johnson
If you are idle, be not solitary. If you are solitary, be not idle. - Samuel Johnson
It is the doom of laziness and gluttony to be inactive without ease, and drowsy without tranquility. - Samuel Johnson
Your manuscript is both good and original, but the part that is good is not original and the part that is original is not good. - Samuel Johnson
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good. - Samuel Johnson
A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him. - Samuel Johnson
Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must be first overcome. - Samuel Johnson
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. - Samuel Johnson
A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything. - Samuel Johnson
The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken. - Samuel Johnson
Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world. - Samuel Johnson
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful. - Samuel Johnson
Americans are a race of convicts and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging. - Samuel Johnson
Of all the griefs that harass the distrest, Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest. - Samuel Johnson
Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. - Samuel Johnson
While an author is yet living we estimate his powers by his worst performance, and when he is dead we rate them by his best. - Samuel Johnson
Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself. - Samuel Johnson
It is better to live rich than to die rich. - Samuel Johnson
Adversity is the state in which man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free of admirers then. - Samuel Johnson
The true art of memory, is the art of attention - Samuel Johnson
If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair. - Samuel Johnson
The Irish are a fair people - they never speak well of one another. - Samuel Johnson
I have found you an argument: but I am not obliged to find you an understanding. - Samuel Johnson
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. - Samuel Johnson
men do not suspect faults which they do not commit - Samuel Johnson
You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company. - Samuel Johnson
To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed. - Samuel Johnson
A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other. - Samuel Johnson
There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed. - Samuel Johnson
Life affords no higher pleasure than that of summoning difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified. - Samuel Johnson
To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example. - Samuel Johnson
Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult. - Samuel Johnson
My congratulations to you, sir. Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good. - Samuel Johnson
No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures. - Samuel Johnson
What cannot be repaired is not to be regretted. - Samuel Johnson
Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible. [on hearing a famous violinist] - Samuel Johnson
A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it. - Samuel Johnson
Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise. - Samuel Johnson
Being in a ship is like being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned. - Samuel Johnson
There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good. - Samuel Johnson
In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it. - Samuel Johnson
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. - Samuel Johnson
People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed. - Samuel Johnson
Men have been wise in many different modes; but they have always laughed the same way. - Samuel Johnson
The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove. - Samuel Johnson
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance. - Samuel Johnson
Grief is a species of idleness. - Samuel Johnson
Our aspirations are our possibilities. - Samuel Johnson
Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent. - Samuel Johnson
There is no problem the mind of man can set that the mind of man cannot solve. - Samuel Johnson
Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay an author. - Samuel Johnson
We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us. - Samuel Johnson
What we hope ever to do with ease we may learn first to do with diligence. - Samuel Johnson
Hope is necessary in every condition. - Samuel Johnson
You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument. - Samuel Johnson
Hope itself is a species of happiness, and perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords. - Samuel Johnson
I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works. - Samuel Johnson
I had done all that I could, and no Man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little. - Samuel Johnson
Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable. - Samuel Johnson
An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere. - Samuel Johnson
If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle. - Samuel Johnson
It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them. - Samuel Johnson
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance. - Samuel Johnson
Golf is a game in which you claim the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood. - Samuel Johnson
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble. - Samuel Johnson
There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity. - Samuel Johnson
There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable that I would not rather know it than not know it. - Samuel Johnson
You must have taken great pains, sir; you could not naturally been so very stupid. - Samuel Johnson
It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time. - Samuel Johnson
Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so. - Samuel Johnson
To go and see one druidical temple is only to see that it is nothing, for there is neither art nor power in it; and seeing one is quite enough. - Samuel Johnson
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it. - Samuel Johnson
It is necessary to hope... for hope itself is happiness. - Samuel Johnson
I would rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world. - Samuel Johnson
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. - Samuel Johnson
Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language. - Samuel Johnson
Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out. - Samuel Johnson
Oats. A grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people. - Samuel Johnson
That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner. - Samuel Johnson
Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings. - Samuel Johnson
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 drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark. - Samuel Johnson
He who makes a beast of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man. - Samuel Johnson
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it. - Samuel Johnson