For Students
Samuel Johnson: Quotes
- Adversity
If a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.
- Conversation
The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.
- Cowardice
It is thus that mutual cowardice keeps us in peace. Were one half of mankind brave, and one half cowards, the brave would be always beating the cowards. Were all brave, they would lead a very uneasy life; all would be continually fighting: but being all cowards, we go on very well.
- Craftiness
Every man wishes to be wise, and they who cannot be wise are almost always cunning.: The Idler
- Criticism and Critics
You may abuse a tragedy, though you cannot write one. You may scold a carpenter who has made you a bad table, though you cannot make a table. It is not your trade to make tables.
- Cruelty
Scarcely anything awakens attention like a tale of cruelty. The writer of news never fails . . . to tell how the enemies murdered children and ravished virgins; and, if the scene of action be somewhat distant, scalps half the inhabitants of a province.: The Idler
- Curiosity
Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last.: The Rambler
- Death
Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
- Drinking
Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
- Equality
Your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.
- Food and Eating
A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.
- Food and Eating
Some people have a foolish way of not minding, or pretending not to mind, what they eat. For my part, I mind my belly very studiously, and very carefully; for I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.
- Gratitude
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, but because obligation is a pain.: The Rambler
- Hope
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.
- Hope
The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.: The Rambler
- Idleness and Laziness
If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.
- Idleness and Laziness
Every man is, or hopes to be, an idler.: The Idler
- Imagination
Were it not for imagination, Sir, a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a Duchess.
- Imitation
No man ever yet became great by imitation.: The Rambler
- Ireland and the Irish
The Irish are a fair people;—they never speak well of one another.
- Jealousy and Envy
Whoever envies another confesses his superiority.: The Rambler
- Knowledge and Learning
All knowledge is of itself of some value. There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable that I would not rather know it than not.
- Language
Language is the dress of thought.: The Lives of the Eminent English Poets: Cowley
- Marriage
Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.: Rasselas
- Marriage
A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately after his wife died: Johnson said, it was the triumph of hope over experience.
- Military
Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier.
- Money
There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
- Pain and Suffering
Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.: The Rambler
- Patriotism and Nationalism
Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.
- Peoples and Places
When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.
- Pleasure and Indulgence
No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.
- Pleasure and Indulgence
Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.: The Idler
- Poverty
All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil, show it to be evidently a great evil. You never find people laboring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful fortune.
- Poverty
A decent provision for the poor, is the true test of civilization.
- Questions
Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.
- Self-Condemnation
All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare. Ithas all the invidiousness of self-praise, and all the reproach of falsehood.
- Ships and Sailing
No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
- Style
An old tutor of a college said to one of his pupils: “Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.”
- The Present
No mind is much employed upon the present: recollection and anticipation fill up almost all our moments.: Rasselas
- The Will
All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it.
- Travel
A man who has not been in Italy isalways conscious of an inferiority.
- Trust
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.: The Rambler
- Wealth
It is better to live rich than to die rich.
- Writing and Writers
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.