It is generally known, that he who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldom cures us of expectation, or has any effect other than that of producing a moral sentence or peevish exclamation.


Samuel Johnson

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Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.
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Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things ...
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When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
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Those who attain to any excellence commonly spend life in some single pursuit, for excellence is not...
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Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.
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I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
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Christianity is the highest perfection of humanity.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
He who waits to do a great deal of good at once, will never do anything.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense o...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
I am sorry I have not learnt to play at cards. It is very useful in life: it generates kindness, and...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Self-love is often rather arrogant than blind; it does not hide our faults from ourselves, but persu...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, an...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Patron: One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, a...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and la...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bul...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
He that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly beco...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Suspicion is most often useless pain.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit tho...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
We are inclined to believe those whom we don not know because they have never deceived us.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Small debts are like small gun shot; they are rattling around us on all sides and one can scarcely e...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous mind.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom natur...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Criticism, as it was first instituted by Aristotle, was meant as a standard of judging well.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be sile...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds; but he that endeavors afte...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the f...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again exp...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying t...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
I know not any thing more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords: b...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
No two men can be half an hour together but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Nothing is more common than mutual dislike, where mutual approbation is particularly expected.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The chains of habit are generally too week to be felt, until they are too strong to be broken.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The habit of looking on the best side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a years.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
No one ever became great by imitation.
SAMUEL JOHNSON