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

Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.

Samuel Johnson

Actions are visible, though motives are secret.

Samuel Johnson

You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not - silence is the sharper sword.

Samuel Johnson

Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own.

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, but because obligation is a pain.

Samuel Johnson

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.

Samuel Johnson

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

Samuel Johnson

It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.

Samuel Johnson

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

Samuel Johnson

We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

Samuel Johnson

Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.

Samuel Johnson

Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes me uneasy; and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy.

Samuel Johnson

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.

Samuel Johnson

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

Samuel Johnson

Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.

Samuel Johnson

Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.

Samuel Johnson

A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.

Samuel Johnson

Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.

Samuel Johnson

Language is the dress of thought.

Samuel Johnson

Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.

Samuel Johnson

A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.

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