Skip to content

Money Quotes by Samuel Johnson

61 Money quotes by Samuel Johnson

All Money quotes Samuel Johnson’s page

Samuel Johnson says that money can push people to write, but he also warns that health and happiness are more important than wealth. He notes that the desire for riches often creates conflict between people, and that money should not be treated as the only good.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

Riches exclude only one inconvenience,--that is, poverty.

Image

All this [wealth] excludes but one evil, poverty.

Image

No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.

Image

Money confounds subordination.

Image

The insolence of wealth will creep out

Image

It is better to live rich than to die rich.

Image

Let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich.

Image

Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.

Image

Riches are of no value in themselves; their use is discovered only in that which they procure.

Image

It is surely very narrow policy that supposes money to be the chief good.

Image

The wise man applauds he who he thinks most virtuous; the rest of the world applauds the wealthy.

Image

The whole world is put in motion by the wish for riches and the dread of poverty.

Image

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.

Image

There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.

Image

No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.

Image

One cause, which is not always observed, of the insufficiency of riches, is that they very seldom make their owner rich.

Image

We are not here to sell a parcel of boilers and vats, but the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of…

Image

The happiness of building lasted but a little while, for though I love to spend, I hate to be cheated; and I…

Image

Keeping accounts, sir, is of no use when a man is spending his own money, and has nobody to whom he is…

Image

I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love…

Image

Other things may be seized by might, or purchased with money, but knowledge is to be gained only by study, and study…

Image

You are much surer that you are doing good when you pay money to those who work, as the recompense of their…

Image

It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in…

Image

It is the great privilege of poverty to be happy unenvied, to be healthful without physic, and secure without a guard; to…

Image

Avarice is a uniform and tractable vice; other intellectual distempers are different in different constitutions of mind. That which soothes the pride…

Image

The commercial world is very frequently put into confusion by the bankruptcy of merchants, that assumed the splendour of wealth only to…

Image

You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it…

Image

“Whoever thou art that, not content with a moderate condition, imaginest happiness in royal magnificence, and dreamest that command or riches can…

Image

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore…

Image

These are the men who, without virtue, labour, or hazard, are growing rich, as their country is impoverished; they rejoice, when obstinacy…

Image

The hostility perpetually exercised between one man and another, is caused by the desire of many for that which only few can…

Image

When the desire of wealth is taking hold of the heart, let us look round and see how it operates upon than…

Image

Life is short. The sooner that a man begins to enjoy his wealth the better.

Image

No, Sir, you will have much more influence by giving or lending money where it is wanted, than by hospitality.

Image

Though I love to spend, I hate be cheated, and I found that to build is to be robbed.

Image

If what happens does not make us richer, we must welcome it if it makes us wiser.

Image

Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.

Image

Wit will never make a man rich, but there are places where riches will always make a wit.

Image

“To bring back riches from the East you must bring riches with you.”

Image

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

Image

Other authors on Money

More by Samuel Johnson

The size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth.

Pound St. Paul's Church into atoms, and consider any single atom; it is to be sure, good for nothing; but put all these atoms…

You can never be wise unless you love reading.

If our aim is to praise, we should forget to criticize; if our aim is to criticize, we should remember to praise

All theory is against free will; all experience is for it.

Had I learned to fiddle, I should have done nothing else.

It is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it…

The basis of all excellence is truth: he that professes love ought to feel its power.

Words are daughters of earth but ideas are sons of heaven.

“The composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelting…

“The cherubim were never intended as an object of worship, because they were only the appendices to another thing. But a thing is then…

Nobody has the right to put another under such a difficulty that he must either hurt the person by telling the truth or hurt…

That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own self-esteem

The time will come to every human being when it must be known how well he can bear to die.