Quotes by Samuel Johnson

About Samuel Johnson:

Samuel Johnson is also the subject of "the most famous single work of biographical art in the whole of literature": James Boswell's Life of Samuel Johnson.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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

Samuel Johnson

Nothing [...] will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome.

Samuel Johnson

I can discover within me no power of perception which is not glutted with its proper pleasure, yet I do not feel myself delighted. Man has surely some latent sense for which this place affords no gratification, or he has some desires distinct from se...

Samuel Johnson

Is there such depravity in man as that he should injure another without benefit to himself?

Samuel Johnson

Ignorance, when voluntary, is criminal, and a man may be properly charged with that evil which he neglected or refused to learn how to prevent.

Samuel Johnson

Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.

Samuel Johnson

Human life is every where a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

Samuel Johnson

Pleasure, in itself harmless, may become mischievous, by endearing to us a state which we know to be transient and probatory, and withdrawing our thoughts from that of which every hour brings us nearer to the beginning, and of which no length of time...

Samuel Johnson

There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex.

Samuel Johnson

Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.

Samuel Johnson

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.

Samuel Johnson

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

Samuel Johnson

The true art of memory is the art of attention.

Samuel Johnson

Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.

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

All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own, and if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.

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.

Samuel Johnson

What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.

Samuel Johnson

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

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

Author Bio

  • NameSamuel Johnson
  • DescriptionEnglish writer
  • AliasesDr Johnson
  • BornSeptember 18, 1709
  • DiedDecember 13, 1784
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionLexicographer; Linguist; Poet; Literary Historian; Writer; Teacher