Top 500 Samuel Johnson Quotes (2024 Update)
Page 9 of 10

401. “Friendship is not always the sequel of obligation...”

— Samuel Johnson

402. “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

403. “In solitude we have our dreams to ourselves, and in company we agree to dream in concert.”

— Samuel Johnson

404. “We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.”

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

406. “The happiest part of a man’s life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.”

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

409. “When a man marries a widow his jealousies revert to the past: no man is as good as his wife says her first husband was.”

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

411. “To build is to be robbed.”

— Samuel Johnson

412. “Composition is for the most part an effort of slow diligence and steady perseverance, to which the mind is dragged by necessity or resolution, and from which the attention is every moment starting to more delightful amusements.”

— Samuel Johnson

413. “He was dull in a new way, and that made many think him great.”

— Samuel Johnson

414. “If in an actor there appears an utter vacancy of meaning, a frigid equality, a stupid languor, a torpid apathy, the greatest kindness that can be shown him is a speedy sentence of expulsion.”

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

416. “It is the just doom of laziness and gluttony to be inactive without ease and drowsy without tranquility.”

— Samuel Johnson

417. “An exotic and irrational entertainment, which has been always combated, and always has prevailed.”

— Samuel Johnson

418. “An epithet or metaphor drawn from nature ennobles art; an epithet or metaphor drawn from art degrades nature.”

— Samuel Johnson

419. “He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.”

— Samuel Johnson

420. “A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.”

— Samuel Johnson

421. “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

422. “Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.”

— Samuel Johnson

423. “No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion, than the negligence with which men overlook their own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they pardon them, however frequently repeated.”

— Samuel Johnson

424. “Many need no other provocation to enmity than that they find themselves excelled.”

— Samuel Johnson

425. “A contempt of the monuments and the wisdom of the past, may be justly reckoned one of the reigning follies of these days, to which pride and idleness have equally contributed.”

— Samuel Johnson

426. “Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?”

— Samuel Johnson

427. “Whisky making is the art of making poison pleasant.”

— Samuel Johnson

428. “Pride is a vice, which pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in himself.”

— Samuel Johnson

429. “The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.”

— Samuel Johnson

430. “Politics are now nothing more than means of rising in the world.”

— Samuel Johnson

431. “There is less flogging in our great schools than formerly-but then less is learned there; so what the boys get at one end they lose at the other.”

— Samuel Johnson

432. “Sir, there is no end of negative criticism.”

— Samuel Johnson

433. “He endearing elegance of female friendship.”

— Samuel Johnson

434. “I have all my life long been lying in bed till noon; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good.”

— Samuel Johnson

435. “We are all prompted by the same motives, all deceived by the same fallacies, all animated by hope, obstructed by danger, entangled by desire, and seduced by pleasure.”

— Samuel Johnson

436. “Expectation improperly indulged in must end in disappointment.”

— Samuel Johnson

437. “There ambush here relentless ruffians lay, And here the fell attorney prowls for prey.”

— Samuel Johnson

438. “Being reproached for giving to an unworthy person, Aristotle said, I did not give it to the man, but to humanity.”

— Samuel Johnson

439. “Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.”

— Samuel Johnson

440. “If the guardian or the mother Tell the woes of willful waste, Scorn their counsel and their pother, You can hang or drown at last.”

— Samuel Johnson

441. “A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.”

— Samuel Johnson

442. “His most frequent ailment was the headache which he used to relieve by inhaling the steam of coffee.”

— Samuel Johnson

443. “Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage, Till pitying Nature signs the last release, And bids afflicted worth retire to peace.”

— Samuel Johnson

444. “Whoever commits a fraud is guilty not only of the particular injury to him who he deceives, but of the diminution of that confidence which constitutes not only the ease but the existence of society.”

— Samuel Johnson

445. “Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible.”

— Samuel Johnson

446. “A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected.”

— Samuel Johnson

447. “Norway, too, has noble prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious noble wild prospects. But, Sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees is the high road that leads him to England!”

— Samuel Johnson

448. “Unconstraint is the grace of conversation.”

— Samuel Johnson

449. “Officious, innocent, sincere, Of every friendless name the friend.”

— Samuel Johnson

450. “While an author is yet living, we estimate his powers by his worst performance; and when he is dead, we rate him by his best.”

— Samuel Johnson