Samuel Johnson

All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.

Falsehood always endeavors to copy the mien and attitude of truth.

Authors and lovers always suffer some infatuation, from which only absence can set them free.

A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.

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

Dont tell me of deception a lie is a lie whether it be a lie to the eye or a lie to the ear.

It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.

Is not a patron one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?

A blade of grass is always a blade of grass whether in one country or another.

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

When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.

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

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.

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

All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.

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.

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

By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.

Wheresoe'er I turn my view, All is strange, yet nothing new: Endless labor all along, Endless labor to be wrong: Phrase that Time has flung away; Uncouth words in disarray, Trick'd in antique ruff and bonnet, Ode, and elegy, and sonnet.

Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation but the only riches she can call her own.

Cunning differs from wisdom as twilight from open day.

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.

Let us be quick to repent of injuries while repentance may not be a barren anguish.

Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own.

Those who attain any excellence commonly spend life in one pursuit for excellence is not often granted upon easier terms.

Parents and children seldom act in concert each child endeavors to appropriate the esteem or fondness of the parents and the parents with yet less temptation betray each other to their children.

Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most.

Patience and submission are very carefully to be distinguished from cowardice and indolence. We are not to repine, but we may lawfully struggle; for the calamities of life, like the necessities of Nature, are calls to labor and diligence.

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.

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.

Exercise is labor without weariness.

Be not too hasty to trust or to admire the teachers of morality; they discourse like angels, but they live like men.

When any anxiety or gloom of the mind takes hold of you make it a rule not to publish it by complaining but exert yourselves to hide it and by endeavoring to hide it you drive it away.

Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.

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

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.

Wine makes a man better pleased with himself; I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.

Courtesy and good humor are often found with little real worth.

Pleasure which must be enjoyed at the expense of anothers pain can never be such as a worthy mind can fully delight in.

This is one of the disadvantages of wine; it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

Sorrow is the mere rust of the soul. Activity will cleanse and brighten it.

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. The world is not yet exhausted; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.

Must helpless man in ignorance sedate roll darkling down the torrent of his fate

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.

No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion, than the negligence with which men overlook their own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they pardon them, however frequently repeated.

Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.

Claret is the liquor for boys port for men but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.

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

Sorrow is properly that state of the mind in which our desires are fixed upon the past without looking forward to the future.

The habit of looking on the bright side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.

He that accepts protection, stipulates obedience.

To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which if not a virtue, is the groundwork of a virtue.

So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.

Self-love is often rather arrogant than blind; it does not hide our faults from ourselves, but persuades us that they escape the notice of others.

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.

Cunning differs from wisdom as twilight from open day

The most useful truths are always universal, and unconnected with accidents and customs.

At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.

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.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

A man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man, because he has both enjoyments.

He that undervalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them.

Worth seeing? Yes; but not worth going to see.

Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity.

Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.

Every man has a lurking wish to appear considerable in his native place.

Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.

This is one of the disadvantages of wine it makes a man mistake words for thought.

Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.

Rain is good for vegetables, and for the animals who eat those vegetables, and for the animals who eat those animals.

Those who attain any excellence commonly spend life in one pursuit for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.

Invention is almost the only literary labour which blindness cannot obstruct.

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

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

Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.

The equity of providence has balanced peculiar sufferings with peculiar enjoyments.

Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.

The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.

The hour of reformation is always delayed every delay gives vice another opportunity of fortifying itself by habit.

The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.

My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.

The charm of London is that you are never glad or sorry for ten minutes together; in the country you are one or the other for weeks.

Small debts are like small gun shot; they are rattling around us on all sides and one can scarcely escape being wounded. Large debts are like canons, they produce a loud noise, but are of little danger.

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

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

All truth is valuable, and satirical criticism may be considered as useful when it rectifies error and improves judgment; he that refines the public taste is a public benefactor.

Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.

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.

The resolution of the combat is seldom equal to the vehemence of the charge.

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.

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

Knowledge is more than equivalent to force.