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Samuel Johnson

Explore inspiring quotes by Samuel Johnson, a remarkable figure whose words continue to inspire and motivate people around the world.

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great

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Featured Quotes by Samuel Johnson

Some of the most memorable quotes from this author

"There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex."

— Samuel Johnsonage

"Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed."

— Samuel Johnsonalone

"If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair."

— Samuel Johnsonalone

"Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth."

— Samuel Johnsonart

"The true art of memory is the art of attention."

— Samuel Johnsonart

"There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible."

— Samuel Johnsonart

All Quotes by Samuel Johnson

Browse all quotes from this author

"There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex."

-Samuel Johnson

"Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed."

-Samuel Johnson

aloneView Quote

"If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair."

-Samuel Johnson

aloneView Quote

"Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth."

-Samuel Johnson

"The true art of memory is the art of attention."

-Samuel Johnson

"There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible."

-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

beautyView Quote

"Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true."

-Samuel Johnson

"The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape."

-Samuel Johnson

birthdayView Quote

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

-Samuel Johnson

businessView Quote

"Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing when we have made it, the next wish is to change again."

-Samuel Johnson

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"Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others."

-Samuel Johnson

courageView Quote

"He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage."

-Samuel Johnson

courageView Quote

"Disease generally begins that equality which death completes."

-Samuel Johnson

deathView Quote

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

-Samuel Johnson

deathView Quote

"Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance."

-Samuel Johnson

designView Quote

"The world is seldom what it seems to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities."

-Samuel Johnson

dreamsView Quote

"It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality."

-Samuel Johnson

equalityView Quote

"Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure."

-Samuel Johnson

equalityView Quote

"Disease generally begins that equality which death completes."

-Samuel Johnson

equalityView Quote

"All theory is against freedom of the will all experience for it."

-Samuel Johnson

experienceView Quote

"Exercise is labor without weariness."

-Samuel Johnson

fitnessView Quote

"No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company."

-Samuel Johnson

"All theory is against freedom of the will all experience for it."

-Samuel Johnson

freedomView Quote

"Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions."

-Samuel Johnson

friendshipView Quote

"If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair."

-Samuel Johnson

friendshipView Quote

"The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef love, like being enlivened with champagne."

-Samuel Johnson

friendshipView Quote

"The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity... The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope."

-Samuel Johnson

futureView Quote

"The future is purchased by the present."

-Samuel Johnson

futureView Quote

"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."

-Samuel Johnson

"A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek."

-Samuel Johnson

"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

"I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual."

-Samuel Johnson

governmentView Quote

"If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance."

-Samuel Johnson

greatView Quote

"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

greatView Quote

"Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance."

-Samuel Johnson

greatView Quote

"To love one that is great, is almost to be great one's self."

-Samuel Johnson

greatView Quote

"Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings."

-Samuel Johnson

greatView Quote

"Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them."

-Samuel Johnson

greatView Quote

"Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles."

-Samuel Johnson

greatView Quote

"A am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice."

-Samuel Johnson

greatView Quote

"I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him."

-Samuel Johnson

greatView Quote

"No man was ever great by imitation."

-Samuel Johnson

greatView Quote

"All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil."

-Samuel Johnson

greatView Quote

"There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either."

-Samuel Johnson

greatView Quote

"He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything."

-Samuel Johnson

greatView Quote

"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

greatView Quote

"There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible."

-Samuel Johnson

greatView Quote

"He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts."

-Samuel Johnson

happinessView Quote

"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

happinessView Quote

"Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife he is always proud of himself as the source of it."

-Samuel Johnson

happinessView Quote

"Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure."

-Samuel Johnson

happinessView Quote

"I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual."

-Samuel Johnson

happinessView Quote

"We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself."

-Samuel Johnson

happinessView Quote

"There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern."

-Samuel Johnson

happinessView Quote

"There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible."

-Samuel Johnson

happinessView Quote

"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

happinessView Quote

"To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution."

-Samuel Johnson

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

-Samuel Johnson

"The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity... The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope."

-Samuel Johnson

"What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence."

-Samuel Johnson

"We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself."

-Samuel Johnson

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

-Samuel Johnson

"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

imaginationView Quote

"Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess."

-Samuel Johnson

imaginationView Quote

"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it."

-Samuel Johnson

knowledgeView Quote

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful."

-Samuel Johnson

knowledgeView Quote

"He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts."

-Samuel Johnson

knowledgeView Quote

"Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise."

-Samuel Johnson

knowledgeView Quote

"Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles."

-Samuel Johnson

knowledgeView Quote

"Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives."

-Samuel Johnson

marriageView Quote

"Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives."

-Samuel Johnson

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