Famous Quotes by Samuel Johnson
Below are famous quotes by Samuel Johnson - English author, critic, & lexicographer (1709 - 1784).
A cucumber should be well-sliced, dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out.
A fishing rod is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool at the other.
A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.
Abstinence is as easy to me, as temperance would be difficult.
Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.
Americans are a race of convicts and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hanging.
An injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere.
As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.
Being in a ship is like being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.
Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
Do not accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.
Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.
Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.
Golf is a game in which you claim the privileges of age, and retain the playthings of childhood.
Grief is a species of idleness.
He is a benefactor of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and so recur habitually to the mind.
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.
Hope is necessary in every condition.
Hope itself is a species of happiness, and perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.
I hate mankind, for I think of myself as one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.
I have found you an argument: but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
I would rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.
If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair.
If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle.
If you are idle, be not solitary. If you are solitary, be not idle.
In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
Knowledge is of two kinds: we know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.
Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
Of all the griefs that harass the distrest,
Sure the most bitter is a scornful jest.
Our aspirations are our possibilities.
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.
The Irish are a fair people - they never speak well of one another
The Irish are a fair people - they never speak well of one another.
The world is not yet exhaused; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.
There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.
There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified and new prejudices to be opposed.
To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.
We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality.
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.
Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.
You must have taken great pains, sir; you could not naturally been so very stupid.
You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument.
You teach your daugthers the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.
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