Quotes from Samuel Johnson
We never do anything consciously for the last time without sadness of heart.
- Samuel Johnson
In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.
- Samuel Johnson
As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.
- Samuel Johnson
How small, of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure. Still to ourselves in every place consign'd, Our own felicity we make or find:
- Samuel Johnson
Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.
- Samuel Johnson
No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion, than the negligence with which men overlook their own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they pardon them, however frequently repeated.
- Samuel Johnson
Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.
- Samuel Johnson
He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.
- Samuel Johnson
In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness. ( On the Bravery of the English Common Soldiers )
- Samuel Johnson
Human life is every where a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.
- Samuel Johnson
Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.
- Samuel Johnson
Nothing has more retarded the advancement of learning than the disposition of vulgar minds to ridicule and vilify what they cannot comprehend.
- Samuel Johnson