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It is necessary to hope... for hope itself is happiness.Samuel Johnson
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I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.Samuel Johnson
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In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.Samuel Johnson
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Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.Samuel Johnson
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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
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Perhaps the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in a few words. We frequently fall into error and folly, not because the true principles of action are not known, but because, for a time, they are not remembered; and he may therefore be justly numbered among the benefactors of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to recur habitually to the mind.Samuel Johnson
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Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.Samuel Johnson
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Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.Samuel Johnson
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He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.Samuel Johnson
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It has been observed in all ages that the advantages of nature or of fortune have contributed very little to the promotion of happiness; and that those whom the splendour of their rank, or the extent of their capacity, have placed upon the summits of human life, have not often given any just occasion to envy in those who look up to them from a lower station; whether it be that apparent superiority incites great designs, and great designs are naturally liable to fatal miscarriages; or that the general lot of mankind is misery, and the misfortunes of those whose eminence drew upon them an universal attention, have been more carefully recorded, because they were more generally observed, and have in reality only been more conspicuous than others, not more frequent, or more severe.Samuel Johnson
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That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner.Samuel Johnson
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Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.Samuel Johnson
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A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.Samuel Johnson
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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
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I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.Samuel Johnson
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Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.Samuel Johnson
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The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write: a man will turn over half a library to make one book.Samuel Johnson
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The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it.Samuel Johnson
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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
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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
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Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.Samuel Johnson
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Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information on it.Samuel Johnson
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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
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Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. When we enquire into any subject, the first thing we have to do is to know what books have treated of it. This leads us to look at catalogues, and at the backs of books in libraries.Samuel Johnson
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There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable that I would not rather know it than not know it.Samuel Johnson
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Ignorance, when voluntary, is criminal, and a man may be properly charged with that evil which he neglected or refused to learn how to prevent.Samuel Johnson
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People have now a-days, (said he, ) got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do so much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken. I know nothing that can be best taught by lectures, except where experiments are to be shewn. You may teach chymistry by lectures.– You might teach making of shoes by lectures!Samuel Johnson
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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
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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
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Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.Samuel Johnson
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There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.Samuel Johnson
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No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.Samuel Johnson
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I know not why any one but a schoolboy in his declamation should whine over the Commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they grew rich, grew corrupt; and in their corruption sold the lives and freedoms of themselves, and of one another.Samuel Johnson
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Our minds, like our bodies, are in continual flux; something is hourly lost, and something acquired.Samuel Johnson
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You can never be wise unless you love reading.Samuel Johnson
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The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.Samuel Johnson
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Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible. [on hearing a famous violinist]Samuel Johnson
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Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.Samuel Johnson
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Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye, and while we glide along the stream of time, whatever we leave behind us is always lessening, and that which we approach increasing in magnitude.Samuel Johnson
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Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings." Samuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson
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[C]ourage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.Samuel Johnson
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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
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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
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Our triumphant age of plenty is riddled with darker feelings of doubt, cynicism, distrust, boredom and a strange kind of emptinessSamuel Johnson
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Every state of society is as luxurious as it can be. Men always take the best they can get.Samuel Johnson
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This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.Samuel Johnson
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Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.Samuel Johnson
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Nothing has more retarded the advancement of learning than the disposition of vulgar minds to ridicule and vilify what they cannot comprehend.Samuel Johnson
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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
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Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome." -Samuel Johnson
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Men do not suspect faults which they do not commitSamuel Johnson
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Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.Samuel Johnson
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The true art of memory, is the art of attentionSamuel Johnson
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All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.Samuel Johnson
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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
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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
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What', said he, ' makes the difference between man and all the rest of the animal creation? Every beast that strays beside me has the same corporeal necessities with myself; he is hungry and crops the grass, he is thirsty and drinks the stream, his thirst and hunger are appeased, he is satisfied and sleeps; he rises again and is hungry, he is again fed and is at rest. I am hungry and thirsty like him, but when thirst and hunger cease I am not at rest; I am, like him, pained with want, but am not, like him, satisfied with fullness. The intermediate hours are tedious and gloomy; I long again to be hungry that I may again quicken my attention. The birds peck the berries or the corn, and fly away to the groves where they sit in seeming happiness on the branches, and waste their lives in tuning one unvaried series of sounds. I likewise can call the lutanist and the singer, but the sounds that pleased me yesterday weary me today, and will grow yet more wearisome tomorrow. I can discover within me no power of perception which is not glutted with its proper pleasure, yet I do not feel myself delighted. Man has surely some latent sense for which this place affords no gratification, or he has some desires distinct from sense which must be satisfied before he can be happy. .Samuel Johnson
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I can discover within me no power of perception which is not glutted with its proper pleasure, yet I do not feel myself delighted. Man has surely some latent sense for which this place affords no gratification, or he has some desires distinct from sense which must be satisfied before he can be happy.Samuel Johnson
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Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay an author.Samuel Johnson
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Hell is paved with good intentions.Samuel Johnson
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Is there such depravity in man as that he should injure another without benefit to himself?Samuel Johnson
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Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.Samuel Johnson
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Language is the dress of thought.Samuel Johnson
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Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.Samuel Johnson
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If the changes that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our constitution, let us make some struggles for our language.Samuel Johnson
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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
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Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.Samuel Johnson
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A man who writes a book, thinks himself wiser or wittier than the rest of mankind; he supposes that he can instruct or amuse them, and the publick to whom he appeals, must, after all, be the judges of his pretensions.Samuel Johnson
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We have less reason to be surprised or offended when we find others differ from us in opinions because we very often differ from ourselves.Samuel Johnson
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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
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A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.Samuel Johnson
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There is no problem the mind of man can set that the mind of man cannot solve.Samuel Johnson
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If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle.Samuel Johnson
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What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.Samuel Johnson
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Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.Samuel Johnson
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Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance.Samuel Johnson
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What cannot be repaired is not to be regretted.Samuel Johnson
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Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.Samuel Johnson
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I look upon every day to be lost in which I do not make a new acquaintance.Samuel Johnson
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Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.Samuel Johnson
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Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.Samuel Johnson
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The Church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well upon one day of the year as another; but there should be a stated day for commemorating the birth of our Saviour, because there is danger that what may be done on any day, will be neglected.Samuel Johnson
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No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion, than the negligence with which men overlook their own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they pardon them, however frequently repeated.Samuel Johnson
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Pleasure, in itself harmless, may become mischievous, by endearing to us a state which we know to be transient and probatory, and withdrawing our thoughts from that of which every hour brings us nearer to the beginning, and of which no length of time will bring us to the end. Mortification is not virtuous in itself, nor has any other use, but that it disengages us from the allurements of sense. In the state of future perfection, to which we all aspire, there will be pleasure without danger, and security without restraint.Samuel Johnson
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We are told, that the subjection of Americans may tend to the diminution of our own liberties; an event, which none but very perspicacious politicians are able to foresee. If slavery be thus fatally contagious, how is it that we hear the loudest yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?Samuel Johnson
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Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.Samuel Johnson
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It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.Samuel Johnson
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Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?Samuel Johnson
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There is no matter what children should learn first, any more than what leg you should put into your breeches first. Sir, you may stand disputing which is best to put in first, but in the meantime your backside is bare. Sire, while you stand considering which of two things you should teach your child first, another boy has learn't 'em both.Samuel Johnson
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Imitations produce pain or pleasure, not because they are mistaken for realities, but because they bring realities to mind.Samuel Johnson
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The composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelting to myrtles and to roses; filling the eye with awful pomp, and gratifying the mind with endless diversity.Samuel Johnson
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Shakespeare opens a mine which contains gold and diamonds in unexhaustible plenty, though clouded by incrustations, debased by impurities, and mingled with a mass of meaner minerales.Samuel Johnson
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Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.Samuel Johnson
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A man sometimes starts up a patriot, only by disseminating discontent, and propagating reports of secret influence, of dangerous counsels, of violated rights, and encroaching usurpation. This practice is no certain note of patriotism. To instigate the populace with rage beyond the provocation, is to suspend public happiness, if not to destroy it. He is no lover of his country, that unnecessarily disturbs its peace. .Samuel Johnson
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A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilisationSamuel Johnson
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To keep your secret is wisdom, but to expect others to keep it is folly.Samuel Johnson
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It is better to live rich than to die rich.Samuel Johnson
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NE'TWORK: Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections....... R E T I' C U L A T E D: Made of network; formed with interstitial vacuities.Samuel Johnson
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PU'RIST: one superstitiously nice in the use of words.Samuel Johnson
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A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.Samuel Johnson