Virtue Quotes by Samuel Johnson

No people can be great who have ceased to be virtuous.

— Samuel Johnson

True enjoyments also keep people from vice.

— Samuel Johnson

Virtue is too often merely local.

— Samuel Johnson

He who would govern his actions by the laws of virtue must regulate his thoughts by those of reason.

— Samuel Johnson

The highest panegyric, therefore, that private virtue can receive, is the praise of servants.

— Samuel Johnson

..to write and to live are very different. Many who praise virtue, do no more than praise it.

— Samuel Johnson

Most men are more willing to indulge in easy vices than to practise laborious virtues.

— Samuel Johnson

Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.

— Samuel Johnson

Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything.

— Samuel Johnson

To dread no eye and to suspect no tongue is the great prerogative of innocence--an exemption granted only to invariable virtue.

— Samuel Johnson

The wise man applauds he who he thinks most virtuous; the rest of the world applauds the wealthy.

— Samuel Johnson

Solitude is dangerous to reason, without being favorable to virtue. Remember that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly…

— Samuel Johnson

The business of life summons us away from useless grief, and calls us to the exercise of those virtues of which we…

— Samuel Johnson

There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow, but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is…

— Samuel Johnson

In youth, it is common to measure right and wrong by the opinion of the world, and in age, to act without…

— Samuel Johnson

It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows…

— Samuel Johnson

[C]ourage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any…

— Samuel Johnson

If he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, sir, when he leaves our houses let…

— Samuel Johnson

The round of a passionate man's life is in contracting debts in his passion, which his virtue obliges him to pay. He…

— Samuel Johnson

Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future, predominate over the present,…

— Samuel Johnson

Without good humour, learning and bravery can only confer that superiority which swells the heart of the lion in the desert, where…

— Samuel Johnson

To love their country has been considered as virtue in men, whose love could not be otherwise than blind, because their preference…

— 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

Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present. The acknowledgment of those virtues on which conscience congratulates us is…

— Samuel Johnson

Wisdom and virtue are by no means sufficient, without the supplemental laws of good-breeding, to secure freedom from degenerating into rudeness, or…

— Samuel Johnson

Among those whose reputation is exhausted in a short time by its own luxuriance are the writers who take advantage of present…

— Samuel Johnson

They whose activity of imagination is often shifting the scenes of expectation, are frequently subject to such sallies of caprice as make…

— Samuel Johnson

No man, however enslaved to his appetites, or hurried by his passions, can, while he preserves his intellects unimpaired, please himself with…

— 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

Glory, the casual gift of thoughtless crowds! Glory, the bribe of avaricious virtue!

— Samuel Johnson

Though the wisdom or virtue of one can very rarely make many happy, the folly or vice of one man often make…

— Samuel Johnson

A newswriter is a man without virtue, who lies at home for his own profit.

— Samuel Johnson

It is to be steadily inculcated, that virtue is the highest proof of understanding, and the only solid basis of greatness.

— Samuel Johnson

Every man prefers virtue, when there is not some strong incitement to transgress its precepts.

— Samuel Johnson

To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which if not a virtue, is the groundwork of a…

— Samuel Johnson

His virtues walked their narrow round, Nor made a pause, nor left a void; And sure the Eternal Master found The single…

— Samuel Johnson

That friendship may be at once fond and lasting, there must not only be equal virtue on each part, but virtue of…

— Samuel Johnson

To set the mind above the appetites is the end of abstinence, which one of the Fathers observes to be not a…

— Samuel Johnson

But grant, the virtues of a temp'rate prime Bless with an age exempt from scorn or crime; An age that melts with…

— Samuel Johnson