Let observation with extensive view, Survey mankind from China to Peru; Remark each anxious toil, each eager strife, And watch the busy… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
That observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good. — 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
Those writers who lie on the watch for novelty can have little hope of greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
From all our observations we may collect with certainty, that misery is the lot of man, but cannot discover in what particular… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
...a common observation, that few are mended by imprisonment, and that he, whose crimes have made confinement necessary, seldom makes any other… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
I know not anything more pleasant, or more instructive, than to compare experience with expectation, or to register from time to time… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Censure is willingly indulged, because it always implies some superiority: men please themselves with imagining that they have made a deeper search,… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Novelty is indeed necessary to preserve eagerness and alacrity; but art and nature have stores inexhaustible by human intellects, and every moment… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
There is no observation more frequently made by such as employ themselves in surveying the conduct of mankind, than that marriage, though… — 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
