Samuel Johnson (1709–1784): English writer and lexicographer. The library holds 256 quotes by Samuel Johnson, drawn from Life of Johnson (Boswell), Rasselas, Vanity of Human Wishes and other works. The 60 below are the most quoted; search the library in the maker for the rest.
Where necessity ends, curiosity begins; and no sooner are we supplied with everything that nature can demand, than we sit down to contrive artificial appetites.
“I fly from pleasure,” said the prince, “because pleasure has ceased to please; I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others.”
Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight, and with which he did not always willingly co-operate; and therefore you will rarely meet one who does not think the lot of his neighbor better than his own.
Live within your income. Always have something saved at the end of the year. Let your imports be more than your exports, and you’ll never go far wrong.
Cunning has effect from the credulity of others, rather than from the abilities of those who are cunning. It requires no extraordinary talents to lie and deceive.
Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an access of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature.
There are some reasoners who frequently confound innocence with the mere incapacity of guilt; but he that never saw, or heard, or thought of strong liquors, cannot be proposed as a pattern of sobriety.
There are innumerable questions to which the inquisitive mind can, in this state, receive no answer: Why do you and I exist? Why was this world created? And, since it was to be created, why was it not created sooner?
How small of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure!
Still to ourselves in every place consigned,
Our own felicity we make or find.
With secret course, which no loud storms annoy,
Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested. And then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.
Depend upon it, that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery, there never is any recourse to the mention of it.
Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity. It becomes cheap as it becomes vulgar, and will no longer raise expectation or animate enterprise.
It is necessary to hope, though hope should be always deluded; for hope itself is happiness and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadful than its extinction.
Whatever advantage we snatch beyond the certain portion allotted us by nature is like money spent before it is due, which at the time of regular payment will be missed and regretted.