Quotes By Samuel Johnson

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

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

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

To love one that is great, is almost to be great one's self.

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

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.

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

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

Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.

Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.

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

There are charms made only for distant admiration.

If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.

You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

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

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

Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.

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.

A man will turn over half a library to make one book.

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

A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.

Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

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

All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.

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.

You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not - silence is the sharper sword.

He who praises everybody, praises nobody.