Humans Quotes by Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

How small of all that human hearts endure/That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.

— Samuel Johnson

A tavern chair is the throne of human felicity.

— Samuel Johnson

The present is never a happy state to any human being.

— Samuel Johnson

Human reason borrowed many arts from the instinct of animals.

— Samuel Johnson

The cure for the greatest part of human miseries is not radical, but palliative.

— Samuel Johnson

Human happiness has always its abatements; the brightest sunshine of success is not without a cloud.

— Samuel Johnson

Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent.

— Samuel Johnson

No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it… There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that…

— Samuel Johnson

Every human being whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all that he has to get knowledge.

— Samuel Johnson

Memory is like all other human powers, with which no man can be satisfied who measures them by what he can conceive,…

— Samuel Johnson

There lurks, perhaps, in every human heart a desire of distinction, which inclines every man first to hope, and then to believe,…

— Samuel Johnson

Such is the emptiness of human enjoyment that we are always impatient of the present. Attainment is followed by neglect, and possession…

— Samuel Johnson

Every other enjoyment malice may destroy; every other panegyric envy may withhold; but no human power can deprive the boaster of his…

— Samuel Johnson

No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library; for who can see the…

— Samuel Johnson

That eminence of learning is not to be gained without labour, at least equal to that which any other kind of greatness…

— Samuel Johnson

To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity; the next is, to strive, and deserve to conquer:…

— Samuel Johnson

Such is the uncertainty of human affairs, that security and despair are equal follies; and as it is presumption and arrogance to…

— Samuel Johnson

Falsehoods of convenience or vanity, falsehoods from which no evil immediately visible ensues, except the general degradation of human testimony, are very…

— Samuel Johnson

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

— Samuel Johnson

To proportion the eagerness of contest to its importance seems too hard a task for human wisdom. The pride of wit has…

— Samuel Johnson

Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes, and…

— Samuel Johnson

Human experience, which is constantly contradicting theory, is the great test of truth. A system, built upon the discoveries of a great…

— Samuel Johnson

To see helpless infancy stretching out her hands, and pouring out her cries in testimony of dependence, without any powers to alarm…

— Samuel Johnson

I have often thought that there has rarely passed a life of which a judicious and faithful narrative would not be useful;…

— Samuel Johnson

It is certain that success naturally confirms in us a favourable opinion of our own abilities. Scarce any man is willing to…

— Samuel Johnson

Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent.…

— Samuel Johnson

Among the innumerable mortifications which waylay human arrogance on every side may well be reckoned our ignorance of the most common objects…

— Samuel Johnson

The greatest human virtue bears no proportion to human vanity. We always think ourselves better than we are, and are generally desirous…

— Samuel Johnson

Nothing has so exposed men of learning to contempt and ridicule as their ignorance of things which are known to all but…

— Samuel Johnson

It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of…

— Samuel Johnson

He that would travel for the entertainment of others should remember that the great object of remark is human life.

— Samuel Johnson

Being reproached for giving to an unworthy person, Aristotle said, I did not give it to the man, but to humanity.

— Samuel Johnson

A small country town is not the place in which one would choose to quarrel with a wife; every human being in…

— Samuel Johnson

All the performances of human art, at which we look with praise or wonder, are instances of the resistless force of perseverance.

— Samuel Johnson

The uniform necessities of human nature produce in a great measure uniformity of life, and for part of the day make one…

— Samuel Johnson

An infallible characteristic of meanness is cruelty. Men who have practiced tortures on animals without pity, relating them without shame, how can…

— Samuel Johnson

How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cause or cure! Still to ourselves in…

— Samuel Johnson

Every man has frequent grievances which only the solicitude of friendship will discover and remedy, and which would remain for ever unheeded…

— Samuel Johnson

Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing…

— Samuel Johnson