FastSaying

So many qualities are indeed requisite to the possibility of friendship, and so many accidents must concur to its rise and its continuance, that the greatest part of mankind content themselves without it, and supply its place as they can, with intere


Samuel Johnson

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

I like to open for a band as it brings on sort of a challenge and it makes things more interesting. ...
KELLY JONES Spirit of place! It is for this we travel, to surprise its subtlety; and where it is a strong and do...
ALICE MEYNELL There are as many worlds as there are kinds of days, and as an opal changes its colors and its fire ...
JOHN STEINBECK A religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of ma...
W. WINWOOD READE A religion so cheerless, a philosophy so sorrowful, could never have succeeded with the masses of ma...
WILLIAM WINWOOD READE The price of living seems to always be death."
Tohin stood, joints popping audibly. "And that i...
KIERSTEN WHITE I hope to continue my friendship with France and its filmmakers for many years to come.
HARVEY WEINSTEIN The movie medium will eventually take its place as art because there is no other medium of interest ...
IRVING THALBERG The movie medium will eventually take its place as art because there is no other medium of interest ...
IRVING THALBERG Journalism can never be silent: that is its greatest virtue and its greatest fault. It must speak, a...
HENRY ANATOLE GRUNWALD Creative powers can just as easily turn out to be destructive. It rests solely with the moral person...
CARL GUSTAV JUNG Creative powers can just as easily turn out to be destructive. It rests solely with the moral person...
CARL JUNG The problem was . . . unique, because of its scope and because there are so many moving parts.
CRAIG CHRETIEN To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to thr...
EDWARD M. HALLOWELL The public must be put in its place, so that it may exercise its own powers, but no less and perhaps...
WALTER LIPPMANN Commemoration of Samuel Seabury, First Anglican Bishop in North America, 1796 If one thing is cle...
HENDRIK KRAEMER They really put on a show [and] make sure the crowd is thoroughly impressed. Their shows are a lot o...
ZACKY VENGEANCE Mankind, if it is to survive, must choose its leaders by the test of their intellectuality; and, con...
JOHN KEEGAN The inexpressible depth of music, so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact ...
OLIVER SACKS There are indeed, in the present corruption of mankind, many incitements to forsake truth: the need ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON In many a piece of music, it's the pause or the rest that gives the piece its beauty and its sha...
PICO IYER To call the American role in the world imperial was, for many who did so, a way of asserting that th...
MICHAEL MANDELBAUM Here and there, human nature may be great in times of trial; but generally speaking, it is its weakn...
JANE AUSTEN Is it not true, then, that my life with all its limitations touches at many points the life of the W...
HELEN KELLER I need not torment myself with the fear that my faith may fail; as grace led me to faith in the firs...
J.I. PACKER Darkness always had its part to play. Without it, how would we know when we walked in the light? It�...
CLIVE BARKER We must judge a government by its general tendencies and not by its happy accidents.
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY There are many unanswered questions about the proposal and its provisions and restrictions. We want ...
JENNIFER ALEXANDER If one were to take that goal out of out of its religious form and look merely at its purely human s...
ALBERT EINSTEIN In the midst of combat, we learned a great deal about mankind and its many different races, creeds a...
CARLOS WALLACE With many issues postponed into the future, the situation has not reached a stage to conduct a suffi...
JUNICHIRO KOIZUMI Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want rain without thun...
FREDERICK DOUGLASS Any hope that America would finally grow up vanished with the rise of fundamentalist Christianity. F...
FLORENCE KING Just as it is true that a stream cannot rise above its source, so it is true that a national literat...
JAMES CONNOLLY These contradictions are gross and palpable and demonstrate that the New Testament is not inspired, ...
ROBERT GREEN INGERSOLL God is angry with man. Unless we believe and repent we shall all be damned. It is impossible, indeed...
LESLIE STEPHEN I think its great that so many people are being turned on to exploring history,
JOSH BERNSTEIN Its amazing. How many teams can say they have to play every game like its their last? Because pretty...
ALAN ANDERSON The historical events that have occurred here and the fabric and flow of history - this is very broa...
ERIC POPLIN We could eventually lose so many acres that the U.S. could lose markets and its standing as a reliab...
DALE SCHULER To China, it is so important to secure its crude supply.
GIDEON LO When an uninstructed multitude attempts to see with its eyes, it is exceedingly apt to be deceived. ...
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE Turkey must find its place if, of course, it can heal its internal sores, and none is more malignant...
NOAM CHOMSKY Here is one fact 1 minute to finish the class, 1 day to die, one day behind that fact, one day in th...
DEYTH BANGER This is what is sad when one contemplates human life, that so many live out their lives in quiet los...
SOREN KIERKEGAARD Mankind's true moral test, its fundamental test (which lies deeply buried from view), consists o...
MILAN KUNDERA More than any other single trait, it is the apple’s genetic variability—its ineluctable wildness...
MICHAEL POLLAN Whose maps are we trying to read? And what are we trying to draw? It's so common to live in a place ...
REBECCA SOLNIT It comes with so many options and tech toys that just aren't available on any other car in its price...
DANNY COOPER Poetry is meant to inspire readers and listeners, to connect them more deeply to themselves even as ...
EDWARD HIRSCH To devise an information processing system capable of getting along on its own - it must handle its ...
CLIFF SHAW And how many a town which rebelled against the commandment of its Lord and His apostles, so We calle...
QURAN All communication involves faith; indeed, some linguisticians hold that the potential obstacles to a...
TERRY EAGLETON One of my primary objects is to form the tools so the tools themselves shall fashion the work and gi...
ELI WHITNEY Why are there so many highly educated people? The answer is this area can attract them. Seattle is a...
DICK CONWAY So vast is the shadow cast by the MGM production of 'The Wizard of Oz,' so indelible are its...
KAGE BAKER I understand a ship to be made for the carrying and preservation of the cargo, and so long as the sh...
ABRAHAM LINCOLN IT'S THE QUALITY OF THE CHALLENGE AND THE POSSIBILITY OF ITS FAILURE THAT GIVES SUCCESS ITS VALUE.
DONALD LYNN FROST The beauty of the Catholic church is that it has a sacramental structure that can hold its own with ...
JOHN O'DONOHUE It is a tragedy that many of God’s people have conformed themselves to the world and its thinking,...
BILLY GRAHAM No time to spare: the expression assumed its full significance, as so many expressions do in wartime...
GUY SAJER Times have changed, and science has made great progress, and so has our work; but our principles hav...
MARIA MONTESSORI Fashion condemns us to many follies; the greatest is to make ourselves its slave
NAPOLEON BONAPARTE When (Pryor) took the 'N' word and repeated it in so many contexts and made you laugh at it so much,...
HARRY SHEARER Hurricane Katrina has devastated the Gulf Coast, its residents and so many thousands of families thr...
KLAUS MENNEKES I don't expect that to happen again. There are so many plus points to talk about India and its very ...
ANDREW FLINTOFF When I concentrate on a specific site or place for which I am going to design a building, I try to p...
PETER ZUMTHOR With any work worth its salt, you have to trust the author enough to take its measure. And if you ap...
ART SPIEGELMAN ...this cryptic game of hide-and-seek is what makes it one of the greatest historical mysteries. So ...
BRAD MELTZER The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice so pleasurable that I assume it must be evil.
HEYWOOD HALE BROUN The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice so pleasurable that I assume it must be evil.
HEYWOOD BROUN The urge to gamble is so universal, and its practice so pleasurable that I assume it must be evil.
HEYWOOD BROUN The urge to gamble is so universal and its practice so pleasurable that I assume it must be evil.
HEYWOOD HALE BROUN Politics: Poly.
MANY If you want to humble an empire, it makes sense to maim its cathedrals. They are symbols of its fait...
NANCY GIBBS When the government mandates that everyone must buy a product, its sellers can, and will, increase i...
ROBERT ZUBRIN All students of man and society who possess that first requisite for so difficult a study, a due sen...
JOHN STUART MILL Africa has lost its dream, and when people don't have a dream and don't pursue it, they flou...
BRUCE WILKINSON As it must not, so genius cannot be lawless; for it is even that constitutes its genius -- the power...
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE As it must not, so genius cannot be lawless; for it is even that constitutes its genius-- the power ...
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE Human life, its growth, its hopes, fears, loves, et cetera, are the result of accidents
BERTRAND RUSSELL To overawe, or intimidate, or, when we cannot persuade with reason, to resist with fortitude, are th...
ADAM FERGUSON I like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn...
LIN YUTANG Whenever I hear people talking about liberal ideas, I am always astounded that men should love to fo...
JOHANN VON GOETHE Whenever I hear people talking about "liberal ideas," I am always astounded that men should love to ...
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE Something about music urges us to engage with its larger context, beyond the piece of plastic it cam...
DAVID BYRNE The ad business has some of the great artists, but because there are so many, its hard to determine ...
STEVE STOUTE the hardest part of this whole project. Each song has its own story, its own emotional content, its ...
NEIL DIAMOND It is in the very nature of things human that every act that has once made its appearance and has be...
HANNAH ARENDT The far right seeks to retain the material progress of American capitalism while removing some of it...
RONALD SEGAL The genuine creator creates something that has a life of its own, something that can exist and funct...
ERIC HOFFER We enter parliament in order to supply ourselves, in the arsenal of democracy, with its own weapons....
PAUL JOSEPH GOEBBELS We enter parliament in order to supply ourselves, in the arsenal of democracy, with its own weapons....
JOSEPH PAUL GOEBBELS America knows it has got to deal with its deficit problems so that it, too, can promise it is making...
GORDON BROWN If you love the mystery aspect, then its a great position because there are so many things you can d...
CAPT. RANDY HARDY Architects create spaces that accommodate human activity. As opposed to many of its contemporary cou...
MAGNUS LARSSON Quoting Samuel Johnson: "Men know that ...
JAMES BOSWELL Mental toughness is many things and rather difficult to explain. Its qualities are sacrifice and sel...
VINCE LOMBARDI And, moreover, it is art in its most general and comprehensive form that is here discussed, for the ...
FRIEDRICH SCHLEIERMACHER I get so many doubles, ... that when I get singled, it seems like its so rare, it's like I can't bel...
JEVON KEARSE

More Samuel Johnson

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own...
SAMUEL JOHNSON No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship i...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Love is only one of many passions.
SAMUEL JOHNSON My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
SAMUEL JOHNSON No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wo...
SAMUEL JOHNSON It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehe...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Among the calamities of war, may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the fals...
SAMUEL JOHNSON He who praises every body, praises nobody.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from...
SAMUEL JOHNSON A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately after his wife died: Johnson ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Gloomy calm of idle vacancy.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.
SAMUEL JOHNSON When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.
SAMUEL JOHNSON No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Do not discourage your children from hoarding, if they have a taste to it; whoever lays up his penny...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Whatever you have spend less.
SAMUEL JOHNSON There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
SAMUEL JOHNSON What is twice read is commonly better remembered that what is transcribed.
SAMUEL JOHNSON A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little g...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Books have always a secret influence on the understanding; we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas: ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON The habit of looking on the bright side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world. With this sole view do men engage i...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Wickedness is always easier than virtue, for it takes a short cut to everything.
SAMUEL JOHNSON By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so...
SAMUEL JOHNSON It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Marriage is the best state for man in general, and every man is a worst man in proportion to the lev...
SAMUEL JOHNSON A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talk...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.
SAMUEL JOHNSON A man ought to read just as his inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him littl...
SAMUEL JOHNSON He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and...
SAMUEL JOHNSON The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illust...
SAMUEL JOHNSON We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond t...
SAMUEL JOHNSON This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.
SAMUEL JOHNSON He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Never, my dear Sir, do you take it into your head that I do not love you; you may settle yourself in...
SAMUEL JOHNSON The endearing elegance of female friendship.
SAMUEL JOHNSON To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to thr...
SAMUEL JOHNSON The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay, or dislike hourly increased by causes too sle...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Friendship, 'the wine of life,' said Boswell, should, like a well-stocked cellar, be thus continuall...
SAMUEL JOHNSON To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his ut...
SAMUEL JOHNSON It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharg...
SAMUEL JOHNSON The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.
SAMUEL JOHNSON I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the publi...
SAMUEL JOHNSON "He was a very good hater."
SAMUEL JOHNSON I like a good hater.
SAMUEL JOHNSON We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it posse...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Read your own compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Composition is, for the most part, an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the...
SAMUEL JOHNSON I know not, Madam, that you have a right, upon moral principles, to make your readers suffer so much...
SAMUEL JOHNSON In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading, in order to write; a man will turn over ha...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious...
SAMUEL JOHNSON If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Language is the only instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purc...
SAMUEL JOHNSON My congratulations to you, sir. Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Prejudice not being funded on reason cannot be removed by argument.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.
SAMUEL JOHNSON He who praises everybody, praises nobody.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The real satisfaction which praise can afford, is when what is repeated aloud agrees with the whispe...
SAMUEL JOHNSON A continual feast of commendation is only to be obtained by merit or by wealth: many are therefore o...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Hunger is never delicate; they who are seldom gorged to the full with praise may be safely fed with ...
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 Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.
SAMUEL JOHNSON No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship i...
SAMUEL JOHNSON There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that w...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Men know that women are an over-match for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or most ignora...
SAMUEL JOHNSON The true art of memory is the art of attention.
SAMUEL JOHNSON What is read twice is usually remembered more than what is once written.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The Irish are a fair people: They never speak well of one another.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Much may be made of a Scotchman, if he be caught young.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible.
SAMUEL JOHNSON It is the only sensual pleasure without vice.
SAMUEL JOHNSON That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.
SAMUEL JOHNSON There are few minds to which tyranny is not delightful.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The majority have no other reason for their opinions than that they are the fashion.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Ah! Sir, a boy's being flogged is not so severe as a man's having the hiss of the world against him.
SAMUEL JOHNSON It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy and yet unenvied, to be healthy with physic, secure...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want...
SAMUEL JOHNSON This mournful truth is everywhere confessed, slow rises worth by poverty depressed.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Poverty is often concealed in splendor, and often in extravagance. It is the task of many people to ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?
SAMUEL JOHNSON No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Many things difficult in design prove easy in performance.
SAMUEL JOHNSON If he really thinks there is no distinction between vice and virtue, when he leaves our houses let u...
SAMUEL JOHNSON The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagre...
SAMUEL JOHNSON If I have said something to hurt a man once, I shall not get the better of this by saying many thing...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but per...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Great works are performed not by strength, but by perseverance.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
SAMUEL JOHNSON In all evils which admits a remedy, impatience should be avoided, because it wastes the time and att...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dr...
SAMUEL JOHNSON If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Your manuscript is both good and original; but the parts that are good are not original, and the par...
SAMUEL JOHNSON I found you essay to be good and original. However, the part that was original was not good and the ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Sir, he was dull in company, dull in his closet, dull everywhere. He was dull in a new way, and that...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Sir, a man may be so much of everything, that he is nothing of anything.
SAMUEL JOHNSON He who has provoked the shaft of wit, cannot complain that he smarts from it.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Their learning is like bread in a besieged town: every man gets a little, but no man gets a full mea...
SAMUEL JOHNSON As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Perhaps man is the only being that can properly be called idle.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Turn on the prudent ant thy heedful eyes. Observe her labors, sluggard, and be wise.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.
SAMUEL JOHNSON I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of t...
SAMUEL JOHNSON I am always sorry when any language is lost, because languages are the pedigrees of nations.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, t...
SAMUEL JOHNSON The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.
SAMUEL JOHNSON More knowledge may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his serva...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Man is not weak; knowledge is more than equivalent to force.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Knowledge always demands increase; it is like fire, which must first be kindled by some external age...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Knowledge is more than equivalent to force.
SAMUEL JOHNSON All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upo...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Sir, they are a race of convicts, and ought to be thankful for anything we allow them short of hangi...
SAMUEL JOHNSON A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.
SAMUEL JOHNSON There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a...
SAMUEL JOHNSON There are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits that are not good unti...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Sir, I have no objection to a man's drinking wine, if he can do it in moderation. I found myself apt...
SAMUEL JOHNSON The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effront...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The trade of advertising is now so near perfection that it is not easy to propose any improvement. B...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make fa...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success; for it supplies as m...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON When speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Sir, I have found you an argument. I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
SAMUEL JOHNSON No member of society has the right to teach any doctrine contrary to what society holds to be true.
SAMUEL JOHNSON It seems not more reasonable to leave the right of printing unrestrained, because writers may be aft...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Censure is willingly indulged, because it always implies some superiority: men please themselves wit...
SAMUEL JOHNSON There is nothing so much seduces reason from vigilance as the thought of passing life with an amiabl...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing.
SAMUEL JOHNSON He that would be superior to external influences must first become superior to his own passions.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
SAMUEL JOHNSON It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.
SAMUEL JOHNSON When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Extended empires are like expanded gold, exchanging solid strength for feeble splendor.
SAMUEL JOHNSON Those who attain to any excellence commonly spend life in some single pursuit, for excellence is not...
SAMUEL JOHNSON Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.
SAMUEL JOHNSON The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered but a general effect of ...
SAMUEL JOHNSON I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
SAMUEL JOHNSON 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 It is generally known, that he who expects much will be often disappointed; yet disappointment seldo...
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