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

Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.

Samuel Johnson

Worth seeing? Yes; but not worth going to see.

Samuel Johnson

Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.

Samuel Johnson

If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?

Samuel Johnson

Depend upon it that 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.

Samuel Johnson

To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.

Samuel Johnson

To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.

Samuel Johnson

I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.

Samuel Johnson

It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.

Samuel Johnson

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

Samuel Johnson

The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.

Samuel Johnson

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.

Samuel Johnson

When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation.

Samuel Johnson

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

Samuel Johnson

Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.

Samuel Johnson

A man will turn over half a library to make one book.

Samuel Johnson

The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.

Samuel Johnson

So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.

Samuel Johnson

I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney.

Samuel Johnson

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.

Samuel Johnson

That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner.

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