Quotes from Samuel Johnson

Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.

A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.

The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.

There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.

Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content. No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of the spring: no man can, at the same time, fill his cup from the source and from the mouth of the Nile.

It is necessary to hope... for hope itself is happiness.

To neglect at any time preparation for death is to sleep on our post at a siege; to omit it in old age is to sleep at an attack.

The time will come to every human being when it must be known how well he can bear to die.

By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time.

The present time is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.