Be not too hasty to trust or to admire the teachers of morality; they discourse like angels, but they live like men. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Every man prefers virtue, when there is not some strong incitement to transgress its precepts. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
In writing, as in life, faults are endured without disgust when they are associated with transcendent merit, and may be sometimes recommended… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
To dread no eye and to suspect no tongue is the great prerogative of innocence--an exemption granted only to invariable virtue. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
There is a certain degree of temptation which will overcome any virtue. Now, in so far as you approach temptation to a… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
[C]ourage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
It is to be steadily inculcated, that virtue is the highest proof of understanding, and the only solid basis of greatness. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Glory, the casual gift of thoughtless crowds! Glory, the bribe of avaricious virtue! — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Moral sentences appear ostentatious and tumid, when they have no greater occasions than the journey of a wit to his home town:… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Contempt is a kind of gangrene which, if it seizes one part of a character, corrupts all the rest by degrees. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which if not a virtue, is the groundwork of a… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
On Sir Joshua Reynolds's observing that the real character of a man was found out by his amusements. Yes, Sir, no man… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The business of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues of which we… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
He who would govern his actions by the laws of virtue must regulate his thoughts by those of reason. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
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… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
If our aim is to praise, we should forget to criticize; if our aim is to criticize, we should remember to praise — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
It is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The basis of all excellence is truth: he that professes love ought to feel its power. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
“The composition of Shakespeare is a forest, in which oaks extend in the air, interspersed sometimes with weeds and brambles, and sometimes giving shelting… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
“The cherubim were never intended as an object of worship, because they were only the appendices to another thing. But a thing is then… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
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