The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the praise of servants. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as… — 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
The duties of religion, sincerely and regularly performed, will always be sufficient to exalt the meanest and to exercise the highest understanding. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity; the next is, to strive, and deserve to conquer:… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Men who stand in the highest ranks of society seldom hear of their faults; if by any accident an opprobrious clamour reaches… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes, and… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
There are occasions on which it is noble to dare to stand alone. To be pious among infidels, to be disinterested in… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The luster of diamonds is invigorated by the interposition of darker bodies; the lights of a picture are created by the shades;… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The mere power of saving what is already in our hands must be of easy acquisition to every mind; and as the… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Disease generally begins that equality which death completes; the distinctions which set one man so much above another are very little perceived… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share
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
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
It is as foolish to make experiments upon the constancy of a friend, as upon the chastity of a wife. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share
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
The basis of all excellence is truth: he that professes love ought to feel its power. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share
“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
“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
Nobody has the right to put another under such a difficulty that he must either hurt the person by telling the truth or hurt… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share
That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own self-esteem — Samuel Johnson Copy Share
The time will come to every human being when it must be known how well he can bear to die. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share
