There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, toil, envy, want, and patron. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Life is short. The sooner that a man begins to enjoy his wealth the better. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Since life itself is uncertain, nothing which has life for its basis can boast much stability. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
It is not easy to surround life with any circumstances in which youth will not be delightful. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The truly strong and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The main of life is composed of small incidents and petty occurrences; of wishes for objects not remote, and grief for disappointments… — 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
Philosophers there are who try to make themselves believe that this life is happy; but they believe it only while they are… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man,… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The number of such as live without the ardour of inquiry is very small, though many content themselves with cheap amusements, and… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
“He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own dispositions will waste… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
As a man advances in life he gets what is better than admiration -judgement to estimate things at their own value. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
These papers of the day have uses more adequate to the purposes of common life than more pompous and durable volumes. — 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
If you would shut up any man with any woman, so as to make them derive their whole pleasure from each other,… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
“The chief advantage which these fictions have over real life is, that their authors are at liberty, though not to invent, yet… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The uniform necessities of human nature produce in a great measure uniformity of life, and for part of the day make one… — 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
“The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The maxim of Cleobulus, "Mediocrity is best," has been long considered a universal principle, extending through the whole compass of life and… — 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
Every class of society has its cant of lamentation, which is understood or regarded by none but themselves; and every part of… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
I do not wonder that, where the monastick life is permitted, every order finds votaries, and every monastery inhabitants. Men will submit… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The certainty that life cannot be long, and the probability that it will be much shorter than nature allows, ought to awaken… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Providence has fixed the limits of human enjoyment by immovable boundaries, and has set different gratifications at such a distance from each… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
He that compares what he has done with what he has left undone, will feel the effect which must always follow the… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, of sickness, or captivity, would, without this comfort, be insupportable; nor does… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
None but those who have learned the art of subjecting their senses as well as reason to hypothetical systems can be persuaded… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
“Shakespeare is above all writers, at least above all modern writers, the poet of nature; the poet that holds up to his… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
If one was to think constantly of death, the business of life would stand still — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
I do not envy a clergyman's life as an easy life, nor do I envy the clergyman who makes it an easy… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Life is barren enough surely with all her trappings; let us be therefore cautious of how we strip her. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
“Human life is every where a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.” — 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
