Quotes by Samuel Johnson

“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 exte...”

“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.”

“It is necessary to hope... for hope itself is happiness.”

“I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.”

“There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.”

“No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.”

“Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible. [on hearing a famous violinist]”

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

“Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.”

“Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.”

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

“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 gratific...”

“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 ...”

“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

“Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent. ”

“Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise. ”

“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.”

“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...”

“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...”

“our triumphant age of plenty is riddled with darker feelings of doubt, cynicism, distrust, boredom and a strange kind of emptiness”