Top 500 Samuel Johnson Quotes (2026 Update)
Page 8 of 10

351. “The truth is that the spectators are always in their senses, and know, from the first act to the last, that the stage is only a stage, and that the players are only players.”

— Samuel Johnson

352. “If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with a pretty woman.”

— Samuel Johnson

353. “The violence of war admits no distinction; the lance, that is lifted at guilt and power, will sometimes fall on innocence and gentleness.”

— Samuel Johnson

354. “All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance.”

— Samuel Johnson

355. “A short letter to a distant friend is, in my opinion, an insult like that of a slight bow or cursory salutation – a proof of unwillingness to do much, even where there is a necessity of doing something.”

— Samuel Johnson

356. “Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.”

— Samuel Johnson

357. “No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.”

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

360. “He left the name at which the world grew pale, To point a moral, or adorn a tale.”

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

362. “Nature never gives everything at once.”

— Samuel Johnson

363. “Round numbers are always false.”

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

366. “When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.”

— Samuel Johnson

367. “Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.”

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

369. “Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise and motion.”

— Samuel Johnson

370. “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

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

376. “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

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

— Samuel Johnson

378. “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

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

Featured in: Country Quotes

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

Featured in: Country Quotes

383. “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

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

390. “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

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

394. “Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused, and it is therefore become necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promises, and by eloquence sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetic.”

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

398. “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

399. “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

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

— Samuel Johnson