Samuel Johnson quotes

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.

My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.

What is easy is seldom excellent.

Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.

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.

Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.

Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.

Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and... the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.

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

Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.

It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.

The future is purchased by the present.

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

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

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.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

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

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.

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.

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.

Words are but the signs of ideas.

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.

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.

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

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.

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.

There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.

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.

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.

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.

Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.

Exercise is labor without weariness.

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

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

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

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.

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.

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.

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

Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.

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

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.

You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it; for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle.

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

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

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.

Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.

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

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.

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

Let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich.

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

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.

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.

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

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

To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.

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

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.

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.

You can't be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who's for you and who's against you.

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.

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.

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.

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

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

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.

Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.

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.