Samuel Johnson quote: "To act from pure benevolence is not possible for finite human beings, Human benevolence is mingled with vanity, interest, or some other motive."

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

To act from pure benevolence is not possible for finite human beings, Human benevolence is mingled with vanity, interest, or some other motive.

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Samuel Johnson

To act from pure benevolence is not possible for finite human beings, Human benevolence is mingled with vanity, interest, or some other motive.

Samuel Johnson

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