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When people find a man of the most distinguished abilities as a writer their inferior while he is with them, it must be highly gratifying to them.


Samuel Johnson

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W. H. AUDEN It is a lie.
ARTHUR MILLER Most leaders spend time trying to get others to think highlyof them, when instead they should try to...
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON It is as hard to satirize well a man of distinguished vices, as to praise well a man of distinguishe...
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ERNEST HEMINGWAY Man was so created by the Lord as to be able while living in the body to speak with spirits and ange...
EMANUEL SWEDENBORG Feast of Lucy, Martyr at Syracuse, 304 Commemoration of Samuel Johnson, Writer, Moralist, 1784 A ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Quoting Samuel Johnson: "Men know that ...
JAMES BOSWELL Every novel which is truly written contributes to the total of knowledge which is there at the dispo...
ERNEST HEMINGWAY Keep the extent of your abilities unknown.The wise man does not allow his knowledge and abilities to...
BALTASAR GRACIáN I don't think there's been any writer like Samuel Beckett. He's unique. He was a most ch...
HAROLD PINTER Only man is not content to leave things as they are but must always be changing them, and when he ha...
ELSPETH HUXLEY The vulgar man is always the most distinguished, for the very desire to be distinguished is vulgar.
G. K. CHESTERTON And to them it was given that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five mont...
BIBLE If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination...
BIBLE You know," Daddy said, "it's some that can live their whole life out without asking about it and it'...
FLANNERY O'CONNOR Long before the idea of a writer's conference was a glimmer in anyone's eye, writers learned...
FRANCINE PROSE A novelist's characters must be with him as he lies down to sleep, and as he wakes from his dreams. ...
ANTHONY TROLLOPE The Celtic people are a highly emotional bunch, as we all know, God bless them. And my songs are bas...
ERIC BOGLE The great Cham of literature. (Samuel Johnson)
TOBIAS GEORGE SMOLLETT The power of a writer is that he is a god of sorts. He can create his own worlds and populate them w...
BANGAMBIKI HABYARIMANA I must quit marrying men who feel inferior to me. Somewhere there must be a man who could be my husb...
HEDY LAMARR The wise man realistically accepts as part of life and builds a philosophy to meet them and make the...
WILFERD A. PETERSON The wise man realistically accepts as part of life and builds a philosophy to meet them and make the...
WILFERD A. PETERSON I wish I had met them three or four years earlier. It saddens me to only have one year with them, be...
CHRIS TRAVERS When a man cannot choose, he ceases to be a man.
STANLEY KUBRICK When a writer knows home in his heart, his heart must remain subtly apart from it. He must always be...
WILLIAM MORRIS If a writer of prose knows enough about what he is writing about he may omit things that he knows an...
ERNEST HEMINGWAY It is difficult to esteem a man as highly as he would wish.
LUC DE CLAPIER DE VAUVANARGUES Do not fear people with Autism, embrace them, Do not spite people with Autism unite them, Do not den...
PAUL ISAACS We need to teach the highly educated man that it is not a disgrace to fail and that he must analyze ...
CHARLES FRANKLIN KETTERING We need to teach the highly educated man that it is not a disgrace to fail and that he must analyze ...
CHARLES KETTERING We need to teach the highly educated man that it is not a disgrace to fail and that he must analyze ...
CHARLES F. KETTERING When society denies them their deep-seated need to marry, it only makes them part citizen. The resul...
GILBERT HERDT Conservative. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from a Liberal, who wi...
AMBROSE BIERCE I encourage people to find and use the power of their voices just as much when I do not agree with t...
NIKKI HALEY if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it...
CHARLES BUKOWSKI Leadership is bringing people into new realms of excellence and challenging them to become distingui...
ONYI ANYADO Women should have free access to every field of labor which they care to enter, and when their work ...
THEODORE ROOSEVELT To his own children he was at once the ultimate voice of authority and, when time allowed, their mos...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH Conservative. noun. A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from a liberal, ...
AMBROSE BIERCE Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal wh...
AMBROSE BIERCE Empathy is the new measurement of everything. It doesn't matter what religion you have, what God you...
C. JOYBELL C. As a writer, it's disheartening to write books that you pour your soul into and not have them di...
SYLVIA DAY By the side of the everlasting Why there is a Yes--a transitory Yes if you like, but a Yes.
E.M. FORSTER While Johnson & Johnson has the clear technology lead, the risk they run is in setting the price. If...
MARK LANDY Through their teachings they dignify even the most mundane professions. According to them any profes...
SUNDAY ADELAJA The most spiritual men, as the strongest, find their happiness where others would find their destruc...
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE It's not a matter of just technical competence, it is imagination. It's creativity. It's intellect. ...
MIKE COOK He neither walks with the multitude nor cheers with them. The writer who is a real writer is a rebel...
WILLIAM SAROYAN When an artist leaves his work to amuse people, he loses his time and their respect. If people are t...
WILLIAM MORRIS HUNT The writer must believe that what he is doing is the most important thing in the world. And he must ...
JOHN STEINBECK We are giving them a chance to focus on their abilities. That allows them to take the attention off ...
FREDDIE TAYLOR The most important thing in a relationship between a man and a woman is that one of them must be goo...
LINDA FESTA The most important thing in a relationship between a man and a woman is that one of them must be goo...
LINDA FESTA To go back and read Swift and Defoe and Samuel Johnson and Smollett and Pope - all those people we h...
DAVID MCCULLOUGH I am often asked how it is that I am able to value people to such a deep degree. Apparently, I exhib...
C. JOYBELL C. He was, like everyone of a strongly erotic disposition, twice as good, twice as much himself when he...
STEFAN ZWEIG When we started in 1984 and told banks and others we were planning to build a business making goat c...
ALLISON HOOPER It's easy, after all, not to be a writer. Most people aren't writers, and very little harm comes to ...
JULIAN BARNES I have no fear of men, as such, nor of their books. I have mixed with them--one or two of them parti...
THOMAS HARDY People of uncommon abilities generally fall into eccentricities when their sphere of life is not ade...
JOHANN VON GOETHE He would catapult you forward, and that was his intention with the Jazz Messengers. He would take yo...
BENNY GREEN Sisters, when about their work, should not put on clothing which would make them look like images to...
ELLEN G. WHITE In some cases the seed is more distinguished, and in some the womb of the female, but when both are ...
GURU NANAK An aging writer has the not insignificant satisfaction of a shelf of books behind him that, as they ...
JOHN UPDIKE Leaders don’t call unhappy followers “ungrateful people”. They see them as “lesson teachers�...
ISRAELMORE AYIVOR Man only becomes independent of this physical world when he learns to consider the objects around hi...
RUDOLF STEINER We think this is a good move for Johnson and Johnson. It boosts their pharmaceutical (sales) growth ...
GIRISH TYAGI I did not expect to hear that it could be, in an assembly convened for the propagation of Christian ...
J. B. PHILLIPS A man of guilt acknowledges and changes himself immediately on being hinted slightly about his fault...
ANUJ SOMANY To be a man is, precisely, to be responsible.
ANTOINE DE SAINT-EXUPERY There is no reason for you to try to become like white people and there is no basis whatever for the...
JAMES BALDWIN A man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humors and flatters them, as he does with a ...
LORD CHESTERFIELD A man of sense only trifles with them, plays with them, humors and flatters them, as he does with a ...
PHILIP STANHOPE, 4TH EARL OF CHESTERFIELD Our form of government does not enter into rivalry with the institutions of others. We do not copy o...
THUCYDIDES Once the evaluation and assessment of a client's goals and abilities is complete, MERS Goodwill will...
JAMES SIMMONS We wanted to stop their run game. We changed a couple of coverages after the beginning, but you alwa...
GEORGE CURRY It feels real good to see the kids do what they've done this season. They went undefeated (11-0 in t...
ALAN BLACK When whistleblowers come forward, we need to fight for them, so others will be encouraged. When they...
SARA HARRISON Most leaders spend time trying to get others to think highlyof them, when instead they should try to...
BOOKER WASHINGTON It is a different way to try to teach people that Special Olympic athletes and people with disabilit...
LAURA GREMELSBACKER Man is complete in himself. When they go into the world, the world will disagree with them. That is ...
OSCAR WILDE You have to dream intentionally. Most people dream a dream when they are asleep. But to be a writer,...
HARUKI MURAKAMI A coin is examined, and only after careful deliberation, given to a beggar, whereas a child is flung...
PETER WESSEL ZAPFFE He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one...
JOHN STUART MILL Most people create a destiny of minutiae, of the mundane. They create their own limitations. When th...
BILL BLAIS Invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a dagger in your breast.” ~ Samuel John...
J.J. MCAVOY Southern Living reaches a huge number of travelers, and it's very gratifying to know that so many of...
KAY POWELL The inferior never lives a fuller life than when he feels his existence is subsumed in a greater ord...
JULIUS EVOLA When a law is in its nature a contract, when absolute rights have vested under that contract, a repe...
JOHN MARSHALL The measure of a man is what he does with power.
PLATO As a writer, one is obliged to release her words, to let them live in the world on their own.
TAIYE SELASI He is a man, who is to be a man, the fruit is always present in the seed.
TERTULLIAN Coaching is the universal language to connect with people, helping them to develop a new perspective...
FARSHAD ASL

More Samuel Johnson

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own...
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 Love is only one of many passions.
SAMUEL JOHNSON My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.
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 If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?
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