Samuel Johnson quotes · page 3

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Samuel Johnson

Various
If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.
3.6 · 35 votes · 57 reads
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Various
In a man's letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process. Nothing is inverted, nothing distorted, you see systems in their elements, you
4.9 · 7 votes · 95 reads
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Virtues
In all evils which admits a remedy, impatience should be avoided, because it wastes the time and attention in complaints which, if properly applied, might remove the cause.
3.4 · 33 votes · 54 reads
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Art and Culture
In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.
4.2 · 34 votes · 93 reads
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Art and Culture
In traveling, a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.
4.2 · 57 votes · 118 reads
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Virtues
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
4.8 · 41 votes · 5 reads
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Feelings
It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.
3.5 · 7 votes · 196 reads
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Various
It is better that some should be unhappy than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.
3.2 · 43 votes · 152 reads
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Various
It is better to live rich, than to die rich.
3.1 · 43 votes · 96 reads
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Society
It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination.
3.1 · 38 votes · 122 reads
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Various
It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.
3.5 · 11 votes · 86 reads
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Various
It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy and yet unenvied, to be healthy with physic, secure without a guard, and to obtain from the bounty of nature what the great and wealthy are compelled to procure by the help of art.
3.2 · 30 votes · 60 reads
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Art and Culture
It is the only sensual pleasure without vice.
3.3 · 34 votes · 151 reads
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Various
It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in want of money. It is clear, they have not value for what they spend.
3.6 · 57 votes · 196 reads
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Society
It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharge of any profession.
3.0 · 59 votes · 97 reads
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Various
It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honor, and fictitious benevolen
3.5 · 15 votes · 104 reads
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Nature
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.
3.9 · 60 votes · 155 reads
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Various
Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.
4.2 · 57 votes · 34 reads
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Virtues
Knowledge always demands increase; it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, but will afterwards always propagate itself.
5.0 · 47 votes · 60 reads
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Virtues
Knowledge is more than equivalent to force.
5.0 · 26 votes · 40 reads
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Virtues
Knowledge is of two kinds: We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information about it.
4.4 · 51 votes · 84 reads
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Society
Labor, if it were not necessary for existence, would be indispensable for the happiness of man.
4.4 · 48 votes · 172 reads
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Various
Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas.
4.7 · 16 votes · 50 reads
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Various
Language is the dress of thought.
5.0 · 55 votes · 163 reads
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Government and Politics
Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.
4.9 · 53 votes · 103 reads
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Art and Culture
Lexicographer: a Writerof dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.
3.3 · 39 votes · 187 reads
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Various
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.
3.1 · 20 votes · 45 reads
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Thought and Reason
Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
4.3 · 40 votes · 125 reads
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Virtues
Life will not bear refinement. You must do as other people do.
4.4 · 45 votes · 100 reads
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Feelings
Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.
3.6 · 14 votes · 128 reads
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Virtues
Man is not weak; knowledge is more than equivalent to force.
5.0 · 20 votes · 159 reads
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Various
Many things difficult in design prove easy in performance.
4.5 · 5 votes · 63 reads
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Society
Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.
3.0 · 24 votes · 118 reads
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Society
Marriage is the best state for man in general, and every man is a worst man in proportion to the level he is unfit for marriage.
3.2 · 12 votes · 145 reads
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Feelings
Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.
5.0 · 43 votes · 107 reads
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Nature
Men know that women are an over-match for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.
3.6 · 37 votes · 89 reads
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Virtues
More knowledge may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree and ended with his funeral.
3.5 · 22 votes · 80 reads
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Nature
Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.
4.4 · 56 votes · 13 reads
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Various
Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.
3.8 · 17 votes · 64 reads
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Virtues
Nay, Madam, when you are declaiming, declaim; and when you are calculating, calculate.
3.3 · 51 votes · 84 reads
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Page 3 of 6 · 230 quotes

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