It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
He that would travel for the entertainment of others, should remember that the great object of remark is human life. Every nation… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The perfect day for quitting is not real. It will never come, so might as well start today — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
When I find that so much of my life has stolen unprofitably away, and that I can descry by retrospection scarcely a… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Affectation is to be always distinguished from hypocrisy as being the art of counterfeiting those qualities, which we might with innocence and… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The Church does not superstitiously observe days, merely as days, but as memorials of important facts. Christmas might be kept as well… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Many a man is mad in certain instances, and goes through life without having it perceived. For example, a madness has seized… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
If lawyers were to undertake no causes till they were sure they were just, a man might be precluded altogether from a… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The power, indeed, of every individual is small, and the consequence of his endeavours imperceptible, in a general prospect of the world.… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of the earth, and that things… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Ignorance, when it is voluntary, is criminal; and he may be properly charged with evil who refused to learn how he might… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
In all evils which admits a remedy, impatience should be avoided, because it wastes the time and attention in complaints which, if… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Other things may be seized by might, or purchased with money, but knowledge is to be gained only by study, and study… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
In all evils which admit a remedy, impatience is to be avoided, because it wastes that time and attention in complaints, that,… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Every man speaks and writes with intent to be understood; and it can seldom happen but he that understands himself, might convey… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
It would add much to human happiness, if an art could be taught of forgetting all of which the remembrance is at… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
In order that all men might be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Every man speaks and writes with intent to be understood; and it can seldom happen but he that understands himself might convey… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Nothing detains the reader's attention more powerfully than deep involutions of distress, or sudden vicissitudes of fortune; and these might be abundantly… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
We took tea, by Boswell's desire; and I eat one bun, I think, that I might not be seen to fast ostentatiously.… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
No man is without some quality, by the due application of which he might deserve well of the world; and whoever he… — 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
