If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?
Samuel Johnson
Related
The pleasure of those who injure you lies in your pain. Therefore they will suffer if you take away ...
TERTULLIAN The great Cham of literature. (Samuel Johnson)
TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to thr...
EDWARD M. HALLOWELL Anticipating pain was like enduring it twice. Why not anticipate pleasure instead?
ROBIN HOBB Samuel Johnson said Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad, "tuned the English tongue.
HAROLD BLOOM Pain Is Caused By Pleasure
SULLY ERNA The British system denied any role for human creativity, and instead argued, that if man merely foll...
ROBERT TROUT If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left...
SAMUEL JOHNSON It is always by way of pain one arrives at pleasure.
MARQUIS DE SADE Invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a dagger in your breast.” ~ Samuel John...
J.J. MCAVOY If it doesn't work out there will never be any doubt that the pleasure was worth all the pain.
JIMMY BUFFETT Despise pleasure; pleasure bought by pain in injurious.
[Lat., Sperne voluptates; nocet empta dolo...
HORACE (QUINTUS HORATIUS FLACCUS) The ambitious are forever followed by adulation for they receive the most pleasure from flattery.
OLIVER GOLDSMITH During the Samuel Johnson days they had big men enjoying small talk; today we have small men enjoyin...
FRED ALLEN During the Samuel Johnson days they had big men enjoying small talk; today we have small men enjoyin...
FRED ALLEN The wise man... if he would live at peace with others, he will bear and forbear.
SAMUEL SMILES Power is not pleasure, power is pain.
AMIT KALANTRI The only pain in pleasure is the pleasure of the pain.
ANNE RICE It is not only the ratio of pleasure to pain that determines the quality of a life, but also the she...
DAVID BENATAR If they had (Johnson) it would be them and the rest of us.
DENNIS DACUS Mysterious love, uncertain treasure,
Hast thou more of pain or pleasure!
. . . .
Endless...
JOSEPH ADDISON Mysterious love, uncertain treasure, hast thou more of pain or pleasure! Endless torments dwell abou...
JOSEPH ADDISON It results from the preceding considerations, that there is in reality nothing desired except happin...
JOHN STUART MILL Tragedy delights by affording a shadow of the pleasure which exists in pain.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY A premature death does not only rob one of the countless instances where one would have experienced ...
MOKOKOMA MOKHONOANA If those gentlemen would let me alone I should be much obliged to them. I would say, as Shakespeare ...
THOMAS CARLYLE Pleasure that is obtained by unreasonable and unsuitable cost, must always end in pain.
SAMUEL JOHNSON But if thou shalt forbear to vow, it shall be no sin in thee.
BIBLE The spirit is beyond pleasure and pain; it’s outside them. They are swings of opposites. The spiri...
BELSEBUUB The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead
of having pain and pleasure u...
ANTHONY ROBBINS The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure u...
ANTHONY ROBBINS Would you agree," he said, "that man's sole duty is to produce as much pleasure as possible?"
<...
SUSAN HUBBARD I cannot be with someone who takes pleasure in inflicting pain on me, someone who can’t love me.
E.L. JAMES The happiest is the person who suffers the least pain; the most miserable who enjoys the least pleas...
JEAN JACQUES ROUSSEAU Forbear to mention what thou canst not praise.
MATTHEW PRIOR Those who watch it are people who are not interested in open air channels. It is an option. It is th...
CARLOS HADDAD Those who watch it are people who are not interested in open air channels. It is an option. It is th...
CARLOS TEBECHERANI HADDAD Her heart had grown so familiar to the pain of life without him, that to respond now seemed too larg...
COCO J. GINGER The Puritan hated bear-baiting not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to...
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY He alone is a devotee, who looks alike upon pleasure and pain, he is imbued with the Name of the Lor...
GURU NANAK In pain you can be more meditative than in pleasure.”
BHAGWAN SHREE RAJNEESH The fact is what is seen,what is proven not what is believed
TANICA S HALL ...when we say we're looking for a spiritual adviser, we're really looking for someone to tell us wh...
ANNE MICHAELS We live in one of the few epochs of humanity where life isn't just a painful cycle of toil, fatigue,...
BAUVARD The excess of pleasure is pain
ALMEIDA GARRETT I've read de Sade, and Anaïs Nun, and Gravity's Rainbow, and the Story of O. First yo...
CAITLIN MORAN And she realized that this is true. Pain has somehow transformed into pleasure, and that pleasure is...
JULIA HOBAN A babe at the breast is as much pleasure as the bearing is pain
MARION ZIMMER BRADLEY And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for m...
BIBLE So a voice in the mountain is enough to let loose an avalanche. A word too much may be followed by a...
VICTOR HUGO Pleasure is never as pleasant as we expected it to be and pain is always more painful. The pain in t...
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER Long before the idea of a writer's conference was a glimmer in anyone's eye, writers learned...
FRANCINE PROSE Rich the treasure,
Sweet the pleasure,
Sweet is pleasure after pain.
JOHN DRYDEN Sweet is pleasure after pain.
LAERTIUS DIOGENES The secret of success is learning how to use pain and pleasure instead of having pain and pleasure u...
TONY ROBBINS All my past heartache and pain suddenly made sense. That was who I would not be to the person who de...
HUBERT MARTIN Do you think it takes true pain to experience true pleasure?
GENA SHOWALTER There had been an attempt to humiliate him. It had not succeeded. He had paid, but pain, like pleasu...
JACK VANCE Pleasure feels better than pain. Make the pursuit of pleasure your guide.
SHARON WEIL Something did happen, and I really don't feel proud of it.
DEYTH BANGER The truth is that we can learn to condition our minds, bodies, and emotions to link pain or pleasure...
ANTHONY ROBBINS The truth is that we can learn to condition our minds, bodies, and emotions to link pain or pleasure...
TONY ROBBINS The puritan hated bear baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure t...
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the
bear, but because it gave pleasure ...
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure t...
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY Those who by form did see me and those who followed me by voice. Wrong the efforts they engaged in, ...
BUDDHA The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain.
ARISTOTLE Missing you could turn from pain to pleasure, if I knew you were missing me too.
OPRAH WINFREY I have told friends and supporters who are urging me to run that I would not oppose President Johnso...
ROBERT KENNEDY High heels are pleasure with pain.
CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTIN Pleasure bought with pain does harm.
UNKNOWN The existence of pleasure is the first mystery. The existence of pain has prompted far more philosop...
JOHN BERGER Whoever feels pain in hearing a good character of his neighbor, will feel a pleasure in the reverse...
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN Whoever feels pain in hearing a good character of his neighbor, will feel a pleasure in the reverse....
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN ...when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.
JANE AUSTEN Johnson, for starters, was not good at the sittings. At one, he fell asleep. At another sitting, he ...
FRED VOSS A woman isn't a whore for wanting pleasure. If it were unnatural, we would not be born with such dri...
NENIA CAMPBELL Treating pleasure and pain, gain and loss, victory and defeat alike, engage yourself in your duty. B...
BHAGAVAD GITA Read from a distant star, the majuscule script of our earthly existence would perhaps lead to the co...
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE It would very much depend who is mayor. If I was mayor -- and I'm not running, by the way -- I would...
CAROL SCHWARTZ They followed the vein and would stop and dig out by hand.
JOE LLEWELLYN Quoting Samuel Johnson: "Men know that ...
JAMES BOSWELL I would read the atlas for pleasure. I knew it was weird. It was weird.
KEN JENNINGS Life is both pain and pleasure. If this is the price you must pay for the hours you enjoy, is it too...
CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI Pleasure is often the introduction to pain.
OVID PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO Therein lies the defect of revenge: it's all in the anticipation; the thing itself is a pain, not a ...
MARK TWAIN Bear and forbear.
OVID (PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO) Bear and forbear.
OVID PUBLIUS OVIDIUS NASO I not often like the begining of something it has it owns doubts, loses and failures. But the end is...
DEYTH BANGER It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain.
ARTHUR SCHOPENHAUER The more a thing is perfect, the more it feels pleasure and pain.
DANTE ALIGHIERI What was done today by Johnson is exactly the thing he said he was not going to do. He has shown his...
DENNIS KOEHLER The most total opposite of pleasure is not pain but boredom, for we are willing to risk pain to make...
PETER KREEFT But O alas, so long, so far / Our bodies why do we forbear? / They're ours, though they're not we, w...
JOHN DONNE I am not interested in living in a city where there isn't a production by Samuel Beckett running.
EDWARD ALBEE And he went out, and followed him; and wist not that it was true which was done by the angel; but th...
BIBLE So much of the literature we had to read for high school English class was filled with victimized, t...
LIBBA BRAY It was a remainder of former sentiment; it was an impulse of pure, though unacknowledged friendship;...
JANE AUSTEN All fits of pleasure are balanced by an equal degree of pain or languor; it is like spending this ye...
JONATHAN SWIFT And yet it takes only the smallest pleasure or pain to teach us time’s malleability.
JULIAN BARNES
More Samuel Johnson
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SAMUEL JOHNSON The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
SAMUEL JOHNSON No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wo...
SAMUEL JOHNSON It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehe...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Among the calamities of war, may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the fals...
SAMUEL JOHNSON He who praises every body, praises nobody.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from...
SAMUEL JOHNSON A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately after his wife died: Johnson ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Gloomy calm of idle vacancy.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.
SAMUEL JOHNSON When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.
SAMUEL JOHNSON No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Do not discourage your children from hoarding, if they have a taste to it; whoever lays up his penny...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Whatever you have spend less.
SAMUEL JOHNSON There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
SAMUEL JOHNSON What is twice read is commonly better remembered that what is
transcribed.
SAMUEL JOHNSON A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he
reads as a task will do him little g...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Books have always a secret influence on the understanding; we
cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas: ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON The habit of looking on the bright side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world. With this sole view do men engage i...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Wickedness is always easier than virtue, for it takes a short cut to everything.
SAMUEL JOHNSON By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so...
SAMUEL JOHNSON It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Marriage is the best state for man in general, and every man is a worst man in proportion to the lev...
SAMUEL JOHNSON A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talk...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.
SAMUEL JOHNSON A man ought to read just as his inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him littl...
SAMUEL JOHNSON He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and...
SAMUEL JOHNSON The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illust...
SAMUEL JOHNSON We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the
potentiality of growing rich beyond t...
SAMUEL JOHNSON This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.
SAMUEL JOHNSON He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Never, my dear Sir, do you take it into your head that I do not love you; you may settle yourself in...
SAMUEL JOHNSON The endearing elegance of female friendship.
SAMUEL JOHNSON To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to thr...
SAMUEL JOHNSON The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay, or dislike hourly increased by causes too sle...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Friendship, 'the wine of life,' said Boswell, should, like a well-stocked cellar, be thus continuall...
SAMUEL JOHNSON To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his ut...
SAMUEL JOHNSON It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharg...
SAMUEL JOHNSON The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.
SAMUEL JOHNSON I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the publi...
SAMUEL JOHNSON "He was a very good hater."
SAMUEL JOHNSON I like a good hater.
SAMUEL JOHNSON We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it posse...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Read your own compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the...
SAMUEL JOHNSON I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much...
SAMUEL JOHNSON In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over ha...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious...
SAMUEL JOHNSON If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Language is the only instrument of science, and words are but the
signs of ideas.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purc...
SAMUEL JOHNSON My congratulations to you, sir. Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Prejudice not being funded on reason cannot be removed by argument.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
SAMUEL JOHNSON He who praises everybody, praises nobody.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The real satisfaction which praise can afford, is when what is repeated aloud agrees with the whispe...
SAMUEL JOHNSON A continual feast of commendation is only to be obtained by merit or by wealth: many are therefore o...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Hunger is never delicate; they who are seldom gorged to the full with praise may be safely fed with ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be sile...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.
SAMUEL JOHNSON No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship i...
SAMUEL JOHNSON There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that w...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Men know that women are an over-match for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or most ignora...
SAMUEL JOHNSON The true art of memory is the art of attention.
SAMUEL JOHNSON What is read twice is usually remembered more than what is once written.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The Irish are a fair people: They never speak well of one another.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible.
SAMUEL JOHNSON It is the only sensual pleasure without vice.
SAMUEL JOHNSON That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.
SAMUEL JOHNSON There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The majority have no other reason for their opinions than that they are the fashion.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Ah! Sir, a boy's being flogged is not so severe as a man's having the hiss of the world against him.
SAMUEL JOHNSON It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy and yet unenvied, to be healthy with physic, secure...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want...
SAMUEL JOHNSON This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, slow rises worth by poverty depressed.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Poverty is often concealed in splendor, and often in extravagance. It is the task of many people to ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Many things difficult in design prove easy in performance.
SAMUEL JOHNSON If he really thinks there is no distinction between vice and virtue, when he leaves our houses let u...
SAMUEL JOHNSON The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagre...
SAMUEL JOHNSON If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many thing...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but per...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
SAMUEL JOHNSON In all evils which admits a remedy, impatience should be avoided, because it wastes the time and att...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dr...
SAMUEL JOHNSON If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Your manuscript is both good and original; but the parts that are good are not original, and the par...
SAMUEL JOHNSON I found you essay to be good and original. However, the part that was original was not good and the ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Sir, he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull everywhere. He was dull in a new way, and that...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Sir, a man may be so much of everything, that he is nothing of anything.
SAMUEL JOHNSON He who has provoked the shaft of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Their learning is like bread in a besieged town: every man gets a little, but no man gets a full mea...
SAMUEL JOHNSON As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Perhaps man is the only being that can properly be called idle.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Turn on the prudent ant thy heedful eyes. Observe her labors, sluggard, and be wise.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.
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 ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of t...
SAMUEL JOHNSON I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, t...
SAMUEL JOHNSON The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.
SAMUEL JOHNSON More knowledge may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his serva...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Man is not weak; knowledge is more than equivalent to force.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Knowledge always demands increase; it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external age...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Knowledge is more than equivalent to force.
SAMUEL JOHNSON All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upo...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hangi...
SAMUEL JOHNSON A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.
SAMUEL JOHNSON There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a...
SAMUEL JOHNSON There are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits that are not good unti...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Sir, I have no objection to a man's drinking wine, if he can do it in moderation. I found myself apt...
SAMUEL JOHNSON The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effront...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. B...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make fa...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success; for it supplies as m...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON When speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Sir, I have found you an argument. I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
SAMUEL JOHNSON No member of society has the right to teach any doctrine contrary to what society holds to be true.
SAMUEL JOHNSON It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be aft...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Censure is willingly indulged, because it always implies some superiority: men please themselves wit...
SAMUEL JOHNSON There is nothing so much seduces reason from vigilance as the thought of passing life with an amiabl...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing.
SAMUEL JOHNSON He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
SAMUEL JOHNSON It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.
SAMUEL JOHNSON When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Extended empires are like expanded gold, exchanging solid strength for feeble splendor.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Those who attain to any excellence commonly spend life in some single pursuit, for excellence is not...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered but a general effect of ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity.
SAMUEL JOHNSON He who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do anything.
SAMUEL JOHNSON You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense o...
SAMUEL JOHNSON A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON I am sorry I have not learnt to play at cards. It is very useful in life: it generates kindness, and...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Self-love is often rather arrogant than blind; it does not hide our faults from ourselves, but persu...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, an...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, a...
SAMUEL JOHNSON No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.
SAMUEL JOHNSON He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.
SAMUEL JOHNSON To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and la...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bul...
SAMUEL JOHNSON He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly beco...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Suspicion is most often useless pain.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit tho...
SAMUEL JOHNSON I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's...
SAMUEL JOHNSON We are inclined to believe those whom we don not know because they have never deceived us.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Small debts are like small gun shot; they are rattling around us on all sides and one can scarcely e...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom natur...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.
SAMUEL JOHNSON I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be sile...
SAMUEL JOHNSON He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds; but he that endeavors afte...
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 f...
SAMUEL JOHNSON We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again exp...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying t...
SAMUEL JOHNSON I know not any thing more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation...
SAMUEL JOHNSON It is generally known, that he who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldo...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords: b...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
SAMUEL JOHNSON No two men can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Nothing is more common than mutual dislike, where mutual approbation is particularly expected.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The chains of habit are generally too week to be felt, until they are too strong to be broken.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The habit of looking on the best side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a years.
SAMUEL JOHNSON While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.
SAMUEL JOHNSON He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.
SAMUEL JOHNSON No one ever became great by imitation.
SAMUEL JOHNSON