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The man who first brought ruin upon the Roman people was he who pampered them by largesses and amusements.

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Jun 26, 2026

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About Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson

Samuel Johnson LL.D. MA (September 18 [O.S. September 7] 1709 - 13 December 1784), often referred to simply as Dr Johnson, is one of England's best known literary figures: a essayist, biographer, lexicographer and a critic of English Literature. He was also a great wit and prose stylist, well known for his aphorisms . Dr Johnson is the most quoted English writer after Shakespeare and has been described as one of the outstanding figures of 18th-century England.

Popular Samuel Johnson Quotes

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

Reflect that life, like every other blessing, Derives its value from its use alone.

Suspicion is no less an enemy to virtue than to happiness.

Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise And motion.

The future is purchased by the present.

Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.

The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.

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.

The first years of man make provision for the last.

Scarcely anything awakens attention like a tale of cruelty. The writer of news never fails to tell how the enemy murdered children and ravished virgins.

Round numbers are always false.

The jest which is expected is already destroyed.

Riches exclude only one inconvenience, And that is poverty.

Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.

Solitude excludes pleasure, and does not always secure peace.

Life is short. The sooner that a man begins to enjoy his wealth the better.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

It is in refinement and elegance that the civilized man differs from the savage.

Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.

Knowledge always desires increase; it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external agent, But which will afterwards propagate itself.

Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanics laughs at strength.

Men are seldom more innocently employed than when they are honestly making money.

Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.

Power is always gradually stealing away from the many to the few, because the few are more vigilant and consistent.

Marriage is the best state for man in general; and everyman is a worse man in proportion as he is unfit for the married state.

Men seldom give pleasure where they are not pleased themselves.

Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.

Old Times have bequeathed us a precept: To be merry and wise, But who has been able to observe it?

Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, And others extremely difficult.

Learn that the present hour alone is man's.

When there is no hope, there can be no endeavor.

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.

To cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.

I believe it will be found that those who marry late Are best pleased with their children, and those who marry early with their partners.

To neglect, at any time, preparation for death, is to sleep on our post at a siege; to omit it in old age, is to sleep At an attack.

We are inclined to believe those we do not know, Because they have never deceived us.

What we hope ever to do with ease, we must first learn to do with diligence.

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

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

This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, Slow rises worth by poverty depressed.

Without economy none can be rich, and with it few can be poor.

Words are but the signs of ideas.

Words are the daughters of the earth, And things are the sons of heaven.

You never find people laboring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful income.

Your manuscript is both good and original; But the part that is good is not original, And the part that is original is not good.

Whatever enlarges hope will also exalt courage.

The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.

There must always be a struggle between a father and son, while one aims at power and the other at independence.

There is nothing too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain there at knowledge of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

Then with no fiery throbbing pain, No cold gradations of decay, Death broke at once the vital chain, And freed his soul the nearest way.

The world, in its best state, is nothing more than a larger assembly of beings, combining to counterfeit happiness which they do not feel.

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

The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.

The supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things - the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.

The plaintiff and defendant in an action at law, are like two men ducking their heads in a bucket, and daring each other to remain longest under water.

The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay, or dislike hourly increased by causes too slender for complaint, and too numerous for removal.

The mind is seldom quickened to very vigorous operations but by pain, or the dread of pain. We do not disturb ourselves with the detection of fallacies which do us no harm.

The mental disease of the present generation is impatience of study, contempt of the great masters of ancient wisdom, And a disposition to rely wholly upon unassisted genius and natural sagacity.

Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.

Of ghosts: All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.

Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.

A successful author is equally in danger of diminution of his fame, whether he continues or ceases to write.

A good wife is like the ivy which beautifies the building to which it clings, twining its tendrils more lovingly as time converts the ancient edifice into a ruin.

We tend to trust strangers; as they have not yet deceived us.

Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

Nothing can please many, and please long, but just representations of general nature.

Of Garrick's death: That stroke of death, which has eclipsed the gaiety of nations and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.

Of literary criticism: You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so, they are gone to milk the bull.

Read over your compositions, and where ever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

Adversity has ever been considered the state in which A man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, then especially, being free from flatterers.

I have found men more kind than I expected, and less just.

A Scotchman must be a very sturdy moralist who does not love Scotland better than truth.

Of Chesterfield's Letters: They teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master.

No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.

Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.

A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it.

His fall was destined to a barren strand, A petty fortress, and a dubious hand; He left the name, at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale.

Lexicographer: A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.

That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.

Your levelers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear leveling up to themselves.

The man who is asked by an author what he thinks of his work, is put to the torture, and is not obliged to speak the truth.

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

But Sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!

I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him; you have no business with consequences you are to tell the truth.

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do anything.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion Between his desires and his enjoyments.

Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.

Friendship, peculiar boon of Heaven, The noble mind's delight and pride, To men and angels only given, To all the lower world denied.

Cunning has effect from the credulity of others. It requires no extraordinary talents to lie and deceive.

Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.

Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition.

Avarice is always poor, but poor by her own fault.

Excellence, in any department, can only be attained by the labor of a lifetime. It is not purchased at a lesser price.

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.

Happiness is nothing if it is not known, And very little if it is not envied.

Health is so necessary to all the duties, as well as pleasures of life, that the crime of squandering it is equal to the folly.

Assertion is not argument; to contradict the statement of An opponent is not proof that you are correct.

An age that melts with unperceived decay, And glides in modest innocence away.

All travel has its advantages. If the traveler visits Better countries, he may learn to improve his own; and if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy his own.

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

Hope is itself a species of happiness, And perhaps the chief happiness which this world affords.

Against the head which innocence secures, Insidious malice aims her dart in vain; Turned backwards by the powerful breath of heaven.

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

He that never thinks never can be wise.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

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