Quotes By Samuel Johnson
Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
Samuel Johnson
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.
Samuel Johnson
The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.
Samuel Johnson
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
Samuel Johnson
I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.
Samuel Johnson
From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life.
Samuel Johnson
A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.
Samuel Johnson
Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.
Samuel Johnson
The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.
Samuel Johnson
In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
Samuel Johnson
Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.
Samuel Johnson
The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.
Samuel Johnson
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.
Samuel Johnson
Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.
Samuel Johnson
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.
Samuel Johnson
The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef; love, like being enlivened with champagne.
Samuel Johnson
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.
Samuel Johnson