Quotes By Samuel Johnson

I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.

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.

Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.

We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.

It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.

Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.

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

Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.

There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.

A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.

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.

Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.

Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

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

Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.

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

Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

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

There are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits that are not good until they are rotten.

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

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.

If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?

Love is only one of many passions.

The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.

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.

One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.

The future is purchased by the present.