Inspirational Quotes by Samuel Johnson

Jesting, often, only proves a want of intellect.

— Samuel Johnson

It is better to suffer wrong than to do it.

— Samuel Johnson

Men become friends by a community of pleasures.

— Samuel Johnson

All envy is proportionate to desire.

— Samuel Johnson

Luncheon: as much food as one's hand can hold.

— Samuel Johnson

In the motive lies the good or ill.

— Samuel Johnson

Curiosity is the thirst of the soul.

— Samuel Johnson

Grief is a species of idleness.

— Samuel Johnson

Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused

— Samuel Johnson

None but a fool worries about things he cannot influence.

— Samuel Johnson

He that teaches us anything which we knew not before is undoubtedly to be reverenced as a master.

— Samuel Johnson

In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.

— Samuel Johnson

I never have sought the world; the world was not to seek me.

— Samuel Johnson

Trust as little as you can to report, and examine all you can by your own senses.

— Samuel Johnson

It very seldom happens to a man that his business is his pleasure.

— Samuel Johnson

...it will not always happen that the success of a poet is proportionate to his labor.

— Samuel Johnson

Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present,…

— Samuel Johnson

It is not often that any man can have so much knowledge of another, as is necessary to make instruction useful.

— Samuel Johnson

I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as…

— Samuel Johnson

Sir, I do not call a gamester a dishonest man; but I call him an unsociable man, an unprofitable man. Gaming is…

— Samuel Johnson

The liberty of using harmless pleasure will not be disputed; but it is still to be examined what pleasures are harmless.

— Samuel Johnson

Lexicographer: a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.

— Samuel Johnson

Exert your talents, and distinguish yourself, and don't think of retiring from the world, until the world will be sorry that you…

— Samuel Johnson

What a strange narrowness of mind now is that, to think the things we have not known are better than the things…

— Samuel Johnson

If lawyers were to undertake no causes till they were sure they were just, a man might be precluded altogether from a…

— Samuel Johnson

That all who are happy are equally happy is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not…

— Samuel Johnson

If, sir, men were all virtuous, I should with great alacrity teach them all to fly. But what would be the security…

— Samuel Johnson

Occupation alone is happiness.

— Samuel Johnson

Nature never gives everything at once.

— Samuel Johnson

All industry must be excited by hope.

— Samuel Johnson

Politeness is fictitious benevolence.

— Samuel Johnson

For who is pleased with himself.

— Samuel Johnson

Wretched un-idea'd girls.

— Samuel Johnson

Hope is necessary in every condition.

— Samuel Johnson

Learn that the present hour alone is man's.

— Samuel Johnson

To do something is in every man's power.

— Samuel Johnson

The business of life is to go forward.

— Samuel Johnson

Life protracted is protracted woe.

— Samuel Johnson

Security will produce danger.

— Samuel Johnson

To be of no Church is dangerous.

— Samuel Johnson