Quotes by Samuel Johnson
Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.
Johnson, Samuel
Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance, and the parent of Liberty.
Johnson, Samuel
Grief is a species of idleness.
Johnson, Samuel
Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
Johnson, Samuel
In a man's letters his soul lies naked.
Johnson, Samuel
The vicious count their years; virtuous, their acts.
Johnson, Samuel
Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.
Johnson, Samuel
Nothing will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome.
Johnson, Samuel
Whoever envies another confesses his superiority.
Johnson, Samuel
A cow is a very good animal in the field, but we turn her out of a garden.
Johnson, Samuel
With an unquiet mind, neither exercise, nor diet, nor physick can be of much use.
Johnson, Samuel
When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of twenty-one, little did I suspect that I should be at forty-nine, what I now am.
Johnson, Samuel
When any fit of gloominess, or perversion of mind, lays hold upon you, make it a rule not to publish it by complaints.
Johnson, Samuel
The chains of habit are generally too small to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
Johnson, Samuel
Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness, of captivity, would, without this comfort, be insupportable.
Johnson, Samuel
There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
Johnson, Samuel
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.
Johnson, Samuel
Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.
Johnson, Samuel
Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.
Johnson, Samuel
Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
Johnson, Samuel
Classical quotation is a parole of literary men all over the world.
Johnson, Samuel
Knock the "t" off the "can't."
Johnson, Samuel
How many may a man of diffusive conversation count among his acquaintances, whose lives have been signalized by numberless escapes; who never cross the river but in a storm, or take a journey into the country without more adventures than befel the knights-errant of ancient times in pathless forests or enchanted castles! How many must he know, to whom portents and prodigies are of daily occurrence; and for whom nature is hourly working wonders invisible to every other eye, only to supply them with subjects of conversation?
Johnson, Samuel
Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
Johnson, Samuel
It is generally agreed, that few men are made better by affluence or exaltation.
Johnson, Samuel
Human beings of all societies in all periods of history believe that their ideas on the nature of the real world are the most secure, and that their ideas on religion, ethics and justice are the most enlightened. Like us, they think that final knowledge i
Johnson, Samuel
There is scarcely any writer who has not celebrated the happiness of rural privacy, and delighted himself and his reader with the melody of birds, the whisper of groves, and the murmur of rivulets.
Johnson, Samuel