Samuel Johnson quotes · page 2

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Samuel Johnson

Virtues
Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.
4.6 · 12 votes · 168 reads
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Feelings
For who is pleased with himself.
4.6 · 23 votes · 6 reads
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Virtues
Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.
4.9 · 38 votes · 17 reads
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Feelings
Happiness is not a state to arrive at, rather, a manner of traveling.
3.7 · 55 votes · 186 reads
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Thought and Reason
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.
3.3 · 43 votes · 108 reads
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Virtues
He is no wise man who will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.
3.1 · 27 votes · 6 reads
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Countries
He may justly be numbered among the benefactors of mankind, who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may early be impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to occur habitually to the mind.
3.8 · 29 votes · 85 reads
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Nature
He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind than the strokes of the oar; and many fold in their passage; while they lie waiting for the gale.''
3.7 · 32 votes · 117 reads
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Defects
He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.
4.5 · 53 votes · 39 reads
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Society
He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds; but he that endeavors after it by false merit, has to fear, not only the violence of the storm, but the leaks of his vessel.
3.8 · 29 votes · 177 reads
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Virtues
He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.
4.9 · 34 votes · 114 reads
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Virtues
He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.
3.4 · 43 votes · 97 reads
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Nature
He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.
3.5 · 49 votes · 6 reads
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Virtues
He who has provoked the shaft of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.
3.5 · 16 votes · 198 reads
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Feelings
He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
4.0 · 43 votes · 67 reads
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Virtues
He who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do anything.
4.5 · 45 votes · 20 reads
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Defects
His scorn of the great is repeated too often to be real; no man thinks much of that which he despises.
3.9 · 40 votes · 100 reads
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Feelings
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords: but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged must end in disappoi
3.5 · 22 votes · 193 reads
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Various
Hunger is never delicate; they who are seldom gorged to the full with praise may be safely fed with gross compliments, for the appetite must be satisfied before it is disgusted.
4.9 · 18 votes · 138 reads
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Virtues
I am a great friend to public amusements, for they keep people from vice.
4.4 · 38 votes · 197 reads
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Various
I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.
3.8 · 34 votes · 160 reads
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Countries
I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.
4.7 · 6 votes · 146 reads
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Virtues
I found you essay to be good and original. However, the part that was original was not good and the part that was good was not original.
3.1 · 9 votes · 12 reads
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Virtues
I gleaned jests at home from obsolete farces.
3.9 · 44 votes · 18 reads
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Defects
I hate a fellow whom pride, or cowardice, or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl; let him come out as I do, and bark.
3.2 · 58 votes · 172 reads
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Nature
I hate mankind, for I think of myself as one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.
3.7 · 37 votes · 115 reads
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Virtues
I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.
4.4 · 12 votes · 117 reads
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Various
I know not anything more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to time the difference between idea and reality. It is by this kind of observation that we grow daily less liable to be disappoin
3.9 · 44 votes · 129 reads
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Art and Culture
I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much.
4.9 · 21 votes · 186 reads
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Feelings
I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.
4.1 · 32 votes · 1 reads
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Thought and Reason
I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
4.1 · 35 votes · 156 reads
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Nature
I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.
4.4 · 10 votes · 91 reads
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Thought and Reason
I would advise you Sir, to study algebra, if you are not already an adept in it: your head would be less muddy, and you will leave off tormenting your neighbours about paper and packthread, while we all live together in a world that is bursting with sin a
4.6 · 53 votes · 86 reads
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Government and Politics
I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney.
3.2 · 61 votes · 12 reads
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Government and Politics
I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.
4.9 · 43 votes · 99 reads
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Art and Culture
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. An assault upon a town is a bad thing; but starving it is still worse.
4.5 · 42 votes · 82 reads
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Feelings
If a madman were to come into this room with a stick in his hand, no doubt we should pity the state of his mind; but our primary consideration would be to take care of ourselves. We should knock him down first, and pity him afterwards.
3.1 · 58 votes · 184 reads
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Feelings
If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone; one should keep his friendships in constant repair.
4.5 · 32 votes · 165 reads
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Various
If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many things to please him.
3.5 · 37 votes · 23 reads
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Feelings
If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?
3.6 · 22 votes · 86 reads
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Page 2 of 6 · 230 quotes

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