Top 500 Samuel Johnson Quotes (2024 Update)
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151. “A mere literary man is a dull man; a man who is solely a man of business is a selfish man; but when literature and commerce are united, they make a respectable man.”

— Samuel Johnson

152. “Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.”

— Samuel Johnson

153. “Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.”

— Samuel Johnson

154. “He that voluntarily continues in ignorance, is guilty of all the crimes which ignorance produces.”

— Samuel Johnson

155. “Lectures were once useful; but now when all can read, and books are so numerous, lectures are unnecessary.”

— Samuel Johnson

156. “Memory is the primary and fundamental power, without which there could be no other intellectual operation.”

— Samuel Johnson

157. “A lexicographer, a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.”

— Samuel Johnson

158. “He who is extravagant will quickly become poor; and poverty will enforce dependence, and invite corruption.”

— Samuel Johnson

159. “To talk in public, to think in solitude, to read and to hear, to inquire and answer inquiries, is the business of the scholar.”

— Samuel Johnson

160. “Study requires solitude, and solitude is a state dangerous to those who are too much accustomed to sink into themselves.”

— Samuel Johnson

161. “Grammar, which is the art of using words properly, comprises four parts: Orthography, Etymology, Syntax, and Prosody.”

— Samuel Johnson

162. “Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance.”

— Samuel Johnson

163. “If misery be the effect of virtue, it ought to be reverenced; if of ill-fortune, to be pitied; and if of vice, not to be insulted, because it is perhaps itself a punishment adequate to the crime by which it was produced.”

— Samuel Johnson

164. “Such is the emptiness of human enjoyment that we are always impatient of the present. Attainment is followed by neglect, and possession by disgust.”

— Samuel Johnson

165. “He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.”

— Samuel Johnson

166. “Let observation with extensive view, Survey mankind from China to Peru; Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife, And watch the busy scenes of crowded life.”

— Samuel Johnson

167. “Language is the dress of thought; and as the noblest mien or most graceful action would be degraded and obscured by a garb appropriated to the gross employments of rusticks or mechanics, so the most heroick sentiments will lose their efficacy.”

— Samuel Johnson

168. “A tavern chair is the throne of human felicity.”

— Samuel Johnson

169. “No knowledge is useless, with the exception of heraldry.”

— Samuel Johnson

170. “No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction. A man is pleased that his wife is dressed as well as other people, and the wife is pleased that she is dressed.”

— Samuel Johnson

171. “A man who both spends and saves money is the happiest man, because he has both enjoyments.”

— Samuel Johnson

172. “Worth seeing, yes; but not worth going to see.”

— Samuel Johnson

173. “Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.”

— Samuel Johnson

174. “Age looks with anger on the temerity of youth, and youth with contempt on the scrupulosity of age.”

— Samuel Johnson

175. “Example is always more efficacious than precept.”

— Samuel Johnson

176. “We never do anything consciously for the last time without sadness of heart.”

— Samuel Johnson

177. “We may take Fancy for a companion, but must follow Reason as our guide.”

— Samuel Johnson

178. “A book should teach us to enjoy life, or to endure it.”

— Samuel Johnson

179. “There is no problem the mind of man can set that the mind of man cannot solve.”

— Samuel Johnson

180. “The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.”

— Samuel Johnson

181. “To preserve health is a moral and religious duty, for health is the basis of all social virtues. We can no longer be useful when not well.”

— Samuel Johnson

182. “When there is no hope, there can be no endeavor.”

— Samuel Johnson

183. “When once the forms of civility are violated, there remains little hope of return to kindness or decency.”

— Samuel Johnson

184. “A second marriage is a triumph of hope over experience.”

— Samuel Johnson

185. “By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.”

— Samuel Johnson

186. “It is wonderful when a calculation is made, how little the mind is actually employed in the discharge of any profession.”

— Samuel Johnson

187. “Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.”

— Samuel Johnson

188. “By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time.”

— Samuel Johnson

189. “All wonder is the effect of novelty on ignorance.”

— Samuel Johnson

190. “Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach.”

— Samuel Johnson

191. “Lichfield, England. Swallows certainly sleep all winter. A number of them conglobulate together, by flying round and round, and then all in a heap throw themselves under water, and lye in the bed of a river.”

— Samuel Johnson

192. “Shame arises from the fear of men, conscience from the fear of God.”

— Samuel Johnson

193. “Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal; and he may be properly charged with evil who refused to learn how he might prevent it.”

— Samuel Johnson

194. “I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.”

— Samuel Johnson

195. “He that accepts protection, stipulates obedience. We have always protected the Americans; we may therefore subject them to government.”

— Samuel Johnson

196. “Friendship may well deserve the sacrifice of pleasure, though not of conscience.”

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

198. “You raise your voice when you should reinforce your argument.”

— Samuel Johnson

199. “He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.”

— Samuel Johnson

200. “Don’t tell me of deception; a lie is a lie, whether it be a lie to the eye or a lie to the ear.”

— Samuel Johnson