The most heterogeneous ideas are yoked by violence together; nature and art are ransacked for illustrations, comparisons, and allusions; their learning instructs, and their subtlety surprises; but the reader commonly thinks his improvement dearly bought and, though he sometimes admires, is seldom pleased.


Samuel Johnson

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the sort of person who'd back Proposition 14.
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the lights fade to black.
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Ray.
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More Samuel Johnson

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own...
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No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship i...
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Love is only one of many passions.
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My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.
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The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.
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The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
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No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.
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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.
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Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wo...
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It is very natural for young men to be vehement, acrimonious and severe. For as they seldom comprehe...
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Among the calamities of war, may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the fals...
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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...
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A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately after his wife died: Johnson ...
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He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.
SAMUEL JOHNSON
Gloomy calm of idle vacancy.
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Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.
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When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.
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No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
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Do not discourage your children from hoarding, if they have a taste to it; whoever lays up his penny...
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Whatever you have spend less.
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There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
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What is twice read is commonly better remembered that what is transcribed.
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A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little g...
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Books have always a secret influence on the understanding; we cannot at pleasure obliterate ideas: ...
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The habit of looking on the bright side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.
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Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world. With this sole view do men engage i...
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Wickedness is always easier than virtue, for it takes a short cut to everything.
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By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so...
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It is not from reason and prudence that people marry, but from inclination.
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Marriage is the best state for man in general, and every man is a worst man in proportion to the lev...
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A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talk...
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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...
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He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and...
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We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond t...
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This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.
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He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind ...
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Never, my dear Sir, do you take it into your head that I do not love you; you may settle yourself in...
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The endearing elegance of female friendship.
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To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to thr...
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The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay, or dislike hourly increased by causes too sle...
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Friendship, 'the wine of life,' said Boswell, should, like a well-stocked cellar, be thus continuall...
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To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his ut...
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It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharg...
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The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.
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I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.
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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."
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I like a good hater.
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We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it posse...
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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...
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In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.
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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...
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If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left...
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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.
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He who praises everybody, praises nobody.
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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 ...
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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
No one ever became great by imitation.
SAMUEL JOHNSON