Politeness is fictitious benevolence. Depend upon it, the want of it never fails to produce something disagreeable to one or other. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Friends are often chosen for similitude of manners, and therefore each palliates the other's failings because they are his own. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The arguments for purity of life fail of their due influence, not because they have been considered and confuted, but because they… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
It is the condition of our present state to see more than we can attain; the exactest vigilance and caution can never… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
No man, however enslaved to his appetites, or hurried by his passions, can, while he preserves his intellects unimpaired, please himself with… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
All discourse of which others cannot partake is not only an irksome usurpation of the time devoted to pleasure and entertainment, but,… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
He who fails to please in his salutation and address is at once rejected, and never obtains an opportunity of showing his… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
I have no more pleasure in hearing a man attempting wit and failing, than in seeing a man trying to leap over… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Credulity is the common failing of inexperienced virtue; and he who is spontaneously suspicious may justly be charged with radical corruption. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Gaiety is to good-humor as animal perfumes to vegetable fragrance. The one overpowers weak spirits, the other recreates and revives them. Gaiety… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
If we consider the manner in which those who assume the office of directing the conduct of others execute their undertaking, it… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
It is not indeed certain, that the most refined caution will find a proper time for bringing a man to the knowledge… — 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
