Samuel Johnson Quotes
Samuel Johnson Quotes. Below is a collection of famous Samuel Johnson quotes. Here you can find the most popular and greatest quotes by Samuel Johnson. Share these quotations with your friends and family.
He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind than the strokes of the oar; and many fold in their passage; while they lie waiting for the gale.
By Samuel Johnson
Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things they denote.
By Samuel Johnson
More knowledge may be gained of a man's real character by a short conversation with one of his servants than from a formal and studied narrative, begun with his pedigree and ended with his funeral.
By Samuel Johnson
If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.
By Samuel Johnson
I found you essay to be good and original. However, the part that was original was not good and the part that was good was not original.
By Samuel Johnson
Your manuscript is both good and original; but the parts that are good are not original, and the parts that are original are not good.
By Samuel Johnson
It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them.
By Samuel Johnson
Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
By Samuel Johnson
Nothing is more common than mutual dislike, where mutual approbation is particularly expected.
By Samuel Johnson
The chains of habit are generally too week to be felt, until they are too strong to be broken.
By Samuel Johnson
There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits not because recompense is a pleasure for them, but because obligation is a pain.
By Samuel Johnson
The superiority of some men is merely local. They are great because their associates are little.
By Samuel Johnson
Our tastes greatly alter. The lad does not care for the child's rattle, and the old man does not care for the young man's whore.
By Samuel Johnson
Sir, he throws away his money without thought and without merit. I do not call a tree generous that sheds its fruit at every breeze.
By Samuel Johnson
The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay, or dislike hourly increased by causes too slender for complaint, and too numerous for removal.
By Samuel Johnson
Never, my dear Sir, do you take it into your head that I do not love you; you may settle yourself in full confidence both of my love and my esteem; I love you as a kind man, I value you as a worthy man, and hope in time to reverence you as a man of exemplary piety.
By Samuel Johnson
To let friendship die away by negligence and silence is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of the weary pilgrimage.
By Samuel Johnson
Friendship, 'the wine of life,' said Boswell, should, like a well-stocked cellar, be thus continually renewed. And Dr. Johnson added to this A man , Sir, should keep his friendships in constant repair .
By Samuel Johnson
Count on it, if a person talks of their misfortune, there is something in it that is not disagreeable to them.
By Samuel Johnson
Fly fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.
By Samuel Johnson
Sir, a man who cannot get to heaven in a green coat, will not find his way thither the sooner in a gray one.
By Samuel Johnson
He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds; but he that endeavors after it by false merit, has to fear, not only the violence of the storm, but the leaks of his vessel.
By Samuel Johnson
It is better that some should be unhappy than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.
By Samuel Johnson