Top 500 Samuel Johnson Quotes (2025 Update)
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351. “When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.”

— Samuel Johnson

352. “Shakespeare never had six lines together without a fault. Perhaps you may find seven, but this does not refute my general assertion.”

— Samuel Johnson

353. “Modern writers are the moons of literature; they shine with reflected light, with light borrowed from the ancients.”

— Samuel Johnson

354. “Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.”

— Samuel Johnson

355. “Round numbers are always false.”

— Samuel Johnson

356. “Every man has a lurking wish to appear considerable in his native place.”

— Samuel Johnson

357. “Sir, they are a race of convicts and ought to be grateful for anything we allow them short of hanging.”

— Samuel Johnson

358. “The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay, or dislike hourly increased by causes too slender for complaint, and too numerous for removal.”

— Samuel Johnson

359. “Don’t, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters.”

— Samuel Johnson

360. “Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate, roll darkly down the torrent of his fate.”

— Samuel Johnson

361. “Advice is seldom welcome. Those who need it most, like it least.”

— Samuel Johnson

362. “Merriment is always the effect of a sudden impression. The jest which is expected is already destroyed.”

— Samuel Johnson

363. “To a people warlike and indigent, an incursion into a rich country is never hurtful.”

— Samuel Johnson

364. “Attainment is followed by neglect, possession by disgust, and the malicious remark of the Greek epigrammatist on marriage may be applied to many another course of life, that its two days of happiness are the first and the last.”

— Samuel Johnson

365. “The expense is damnable, the position is ridiculous, and the pleasure fleeting.”

— Samuel Johnson

366. “He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dulness in others.”

— Samuel Johnson

367. “Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.”

— Samuel Johnson

368. “The power of punishment is to silence, not to confute.”

— Samuel Johnson

369. “Slavery is now nowhere more patiently endured, than in countries once inhabited by the zealots of liberty.”

— Samuel Johnson

370. “Levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.”

— Samuel Johnson

371. “Beauty, without kindness, dies unenjoyed and undelighting.”

— Samuel Johnson

372. “That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm, quiet interchange of sentiments...”

— Samuel Johnson

373. “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

374. “In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.”

— Samuel Johnson

375. “No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures.”

— Samuel Johnson

376. “Club: An assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions.”

— Samuel Johnson

377. “Friendship is seldom lasting but between equals, or where the superiority on one side is reduced by some equivalent advantage on the other.”

— Samuel Johnson

378. “Greece appears to be the fountain of knowledge; Rome of elegance.”

— Samuel Johnson

379. “Sir, what is poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is; but it is not easy to tell what it is.”

— Samuel Johnson

380. “Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat.”

— Samuel Johnson

381. “The work of a correct and regular writer is a garden accurately formed and diligently planted, varied with shades, and scented with flowers.”

— Samuel Johnson

382. “Let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don’t let him go to the devil, where he is known.”

— Samuel Johnson

383. “Turn on the prudent ant thy heedful eyes. Observe her labors, sluggard, and be wise.”

— Samuel Johnson

384. “It is commonly observed, that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather; they are in haste to tell each other, what each must already know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm.”

— Samuel Johnson

385. “Life has no pleasure higher or nobler than that of friendship.”

— Samuel Johnson

386. “Wise married women don’t trouble themselves about infidelity in their husbands.”

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

388. “We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.”

— Samuel Johnson

389. “In life’s last scene what prodigies surprise, Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise! From Marlborough’s eyes the streams of dotage flow, And Swift expires a driveller and a show.”

— Samuel Johnson

390. “The lust of gold succeeds the rage of conquest; The lust of gold, unfeeling and remorseless! The last corruption of degenerate man.”

— Samuel Johnson

391. “As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.”

— Samuel Johnson

392. “Cruel with guilt, and daring with despair, the midnight murderer bursts the faithless bar; invades the sacred hour of silent rest and leaves, unseen, a dagger in your breast.”

— Samuel Johnson

393. “The mind is refrigerated by interruption; the thoughts are diverted from the principle subject; the reader is weary, he suspects not why; and at last throws away the book, which he has too diligently studied.”

— Samuel Johnson

394. “When first the college rolls receive his name, The young enthusiast quilts his ease for fame; Through all his veins the fever of renown Burns from the strong contagion of the gown.”

— Samuel Johnson

395. “Sleep undisturbed within the peaceful shrine till angels wake thee with a note like thine.”

— Samuel Johnson

396. “A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.”

— Samuel Johnson

397. “A man may be very sincere in good principles, without having good practice.”

— Samuel Johnson

398. “Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price.”

— Samuel Johnson

399. “Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.”

— Samuel Johnson

400. “A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden.”

— Samuel Johnson