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

There are charms made only for distant admiration.

Samuel Johnson

The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.

Samuel Johnson

Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.

Samuel Johnson

To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.

Samuel Johnson

A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.

Samuel Johnson

Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

Samuel Johnson

When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.

Samuel Johnson

Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.

Samuel Johnson

He that undervalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them.

Samuel Johnson

A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority.

Samuel Johnson

Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.

Samuel Johnson

He who praises everybody, praises nobody.

Samuel Johnson

The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.

Samuel Johnson

You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.

Samuel Johnson

Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.

Samuel Johnson

It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.

Samuel Johnson

He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.

Samuel Johnson

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

Samuel Johnson

A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.

Samuel Johnson

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.

Samuel Johnson

I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.

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