All is not gold that glitters, as we have often been told; and the adage is verified in your place and my… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
If useless thoughts could be expelled from the mind, all the valuable parts of our knowledge would more frequently recur. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
It is man's own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Books are faithful repositories, which may be awhile neglected or forgotten; but when they are opened again, will again impart their instruction:… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
If the guardian or the mother Tell the woes of willful waste, Scorn their counsel and their pother, You can hang or… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Men who have flattered themselves into this opinion of their own abilities, look down on all who waste their lives over books,… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
All envy would be extinguished, if it were universally known that there are none to be envied. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
As pride sometimes is hid under humility, idleness if often covered by turbulence and hurry. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Labor, if it were not necessary for existence, would be indispensable for the happiness of man. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly to it. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
There is no book so poor that it would not be a prodigy if wholly made by a single man. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The morality of an action depends on the motive from which we act. If I fling half a crown to a beggar… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
If I had no duties, and no reference to futurity, I would spend my life in driving briskly in a post-chaise with… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Such is the constitution of man that labour may be styled its own reward; nor will any external incitements be requisite, if… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Truth has no gradations; nothing which admits of increase can be so much what it is, as truth is truth. There may… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
That distrust which intrudes so often on your mind is a mode of melancholy, which, if it be the business of a… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The common people do not accurately adapt their thoughts to objects; nor, secondly, do they accurately adapt their words to their thoughts;… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
If we estimate dignity by immediate usefulness, agriculture is undoubtedly the first and noblest science. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
I would advise you, Sir, to study algebra, if you are not an adept already in it: your head would get less… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
An Italian philosopher said that "time was his estate"; an estate indeed which will produce nothing without cultivation, but will always abundantly… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
People in general do not willingly read if they have anything else to amuse them. — 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
