Samuel Johnson quotes

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

— Samuel Johnson

“Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.”

— Samuel Johnson

“From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life.”

— Samuel Johnson

“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.”

— Samuel Johnson

“That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner.”

— Samuel Johnson

“The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.”

— Samuel Johnson

“When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation.”

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

“Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.”

— Samuel Johnson

“I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.”

— Samuel Johnson

“Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.”

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

“The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.”

— 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

“He that undervalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them.”

— Samuel Johnson

“I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.”

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

“It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.”

— 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

“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.”

— 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

“It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.”

— 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

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

“Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.”

— Samuel Johnson

“Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.”

— Samuel Johnson

“A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.”

— Samuel Johnson

“In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.”

— Samuel Johnson