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
Politeness is fictitious benevolence. Depend upon it, the want of it never fails to produce something disagreeable to one or other. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
We seldom learn the true want of what we have till it is discovered that we can have no more. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Our minds, like our bodies, are in continual flux; something is hourly lost, and something acquired.... Do not suffer life to stagnate;… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
I look upon this as I did upon the Dictionary: it is all work, and my inducement to it is not love… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Many of our miseries are merely comparative: we are often made unhappy, not by the presence of any real evil, but by… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment. — 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
Ignorance is mere privation by which nothing can be produced: it is a vacuity in which the soul sits motionless and torpid… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
When the desire of wealth is taking hold of the heart, let us look round and see how it operates upon than… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Want of tenderness is want of parts, and is no less a proof of stupidity than depravity. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities. — 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
Plenty is the original cause of many of our needs; and even the poverty, which is so frequent and distressful in civilized… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
It is wonderful to think how men of very large estates not only spend their yearly income, but are often actually in… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
All to whom want is terrible, upon whatever principle, ought to think themselves obliged to learn the sage maxims of our parsimonious… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Fine clothes are good only as they supply the want of other means of procuring respect. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Commerce can never be at a stop while one man wants what another can supply; and credit will never be denied, while… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him; and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
It is observed of gold, by an old epigrammatist, that to have it is to be in fear, and to want it… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Difference of thoughts will produce difference of language. He that thinks with more extent than another, will want words of a larger… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
That the happiness of man may still remain imperfect, as wants in this place are easily supplied, new wants likewise are easily… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
There may be other reasons for a man's not speaking in publick than want of resolution: he may have nothing to say. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance, or to extinguish the… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Piety practiced in solitude, like the flower that blooms in the desert, may give its fragrance to the winds of heaven, and… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
In misery's darkest cavern known, His useful care was ever nigh Where hopeless anguish pour'd his groan, And lonely want retir'd to… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
We are unreasonably desirous to separate the goods of life from those evils which Providence has connected with them, and to catch… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
He that has once concluded it lawful to resist power, when it wants merit, will soon find a want of merit, to… — 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
That man is never happy for the present is so true, that all his relief from unhappiness is only forgetting himself for… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
The imaginations excited by the view of an unknown and untravelled wilderness are not such as arise in the artificial solitude of… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Babies do not want to hear about babies; they like to be told of giants and castles. — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions. What we have missed long enough… — 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
Of many, imagined blessings it may be doubted whether he that wants or possesses them had more reason to be satisfied with… — Samuel Johnson Copy Share Image
Men, however distinguished by external accidents or intrinsick qualities, have all the same wants, the same pains, and, as far as the… — 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
