I am aware that by many persons, it is considered in the nature of a joke to to become a candidate and to be elected as a member of the Legislature.
Samuel Johnson
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Samuel Johnson quotes
Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.
A am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice.
A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.
A fly may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.
A hardened and shameless tea drinker, who has for twenty years diluted his meals with only the infusion of this fascinating plant; whose kettle scarcely has time to cool; who with tea amuses the evening, with tea solaces the midnight, and with tea welcomes the morning.
A Judge may be a farmer; but he is not to geld his own pigs. A Judge may play a little at cards for his own amusement; but he is not to play at marbles, or chuck farthing in the Piazza.
A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.
A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.
A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.
A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.
A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.
A short letter to a distant friend is, in my opinion, an insult like that of a slight bow or cursory salutation - a proof of unwillingness to do much, even where there is a necessity of doing something.
A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.
A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain.
Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.
Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused, and it is therefore become necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promises, and by eloquences sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetic.
All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.
All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.
All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.
Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?
Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.
Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.
Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.
As the Spanish proverb says, "He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him." So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.
At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.
Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.
Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.
Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise.
Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.
Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.
Boswell: That, Sir, was great fortitude of mind. Johnson: No, Sir, stark insensibility.
Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.
But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses, let us count our spoons.
By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time.
Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.
Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.
Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.
Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.
Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.
Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.
Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible.
Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.
Do not suffer life to stagnate; it will grow muddy for want of motion: commit yourself again to the current of the world.
Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.
Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.
Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes me uneasy; and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy.
Every other author may aspire to praise; the lexicographer can only hope to escape reproach, and even this negative recompense has been yet granted to very few.
Every other enjoyment malice may destroy; every other panegyric envy may withhold; but no human power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums.
Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.
Exercise is labor without weariness.
Extended empires are like expanded gold, exchanging solid strength for feeble splendor.
Fear is implanted in us as a preservative from evil but its duty, like that of other passions, is not to overbear reason, but to assist it. It should not be suffered to tyrannize in the imagination, to raise phantoms of horror, or to beset life with supernumerary distresses.
Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them.
Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.
From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life.
Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.
He that embarks on the voyage of life will always wish to advance rather by the impulse of the wind than the strokes of the oar; and many fold in their passage; while they lie waiting for the gale."
He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.
He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds; but he that endeavors after it by false merit, has to fear, not only the violence of the storm, but the leaks of his vessel.
He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.
He to whom many objects of pursuit arise at the same time, will frequently hesitate between different desires till a rival has precluded him, or change his course as new attractions prevail, and harass himself without advancing.
He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him great.
He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.
He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.
He who praises everybody, praises nobody.
He who sees different ways to the same end, will, unless he watches carefully over his own conduct, lay out too much of his attention upon the comparison of probabilities and the adjustment of expedients, and pause in the choice of his road, till some accident intercepts his journey.
He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.
Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords: but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged must end in disappointment.
Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.
Hunger is never delicate; they who are seldom gorged to the full with praise may be safely fed with gross compliments, for the appetite must be satisfied before it is disgusted.
I am aware that by many persons, it is considered in the nature of a joke to to become a candidate and to be elected as a member of the Legislature.
I am sorry I have not learnt to play at cards. It is very useful in life: it generates kindness, and consolidates society.
I can't drink a little, therefore I never touch it. Abstinance is as easy for me as tempreance would be difficult.
I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him; you have no business with consequences you are to tell the truth.
I had done all that I could; and no man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.
I hate historic talk, and when Charles Fox said something to me once about Catiline's Conspiracy, I withdrew my attention, and thought about Tom Thumb.
I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him.
I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.
I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.
I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.
I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.
I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney.
I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.
If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair.
If, sir, men were all virtuous, I should with great alacrity teach them all to fly. But what would be the security of the good if the bad could at pleasure invade them from the sky? Against an army sailing through the clouds neither wall, nor mountains, nor seas could afford any security.
If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance.
Ignorance, madam, pure ignorance.
In a man's letters you know, Madam, his soul lies naked, his letters are only the mirror of his breast, whatever passes within him is shown undisguised in its natural process. Nothing is inverted, nothing distorted, you see systems in their elements, you discover actions in their motives.
In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.
It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.
It is advantageous to an author that his book should be attacked as well as praised. Fame is a shuttlecock. If it be struck only at one end of the room, it will soon fall to the ground. To keep it up, it must be struck at both ends.
It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.
It is better to live rich than to die rich.
It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.
It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see.
It is, indeed, at home that every man must be known by those who would make a just estimate either of his virtue or felicity; for smiles and embroidery are alike occasional, and the mind is often dressed for show in painted honor, and fictitious benevolence.
It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.
It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.
It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.
It is so far from being natural for a man and woman to live in a state of marriage, that we find all the motives which they have for remaining in that connection, and the restraints which civilised society imposes to prevent separation, are hardly sufficient to keep them together.
It is thus that mutual cowardice keeps us in peace. Were one half of mankind brave and one cowards, the brave would be always beating the cowards. Were all brave, they would lead a very uneasy life; all would be continually fighting; but being all cowards, we go on very well.
It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.
It would add much to human happiness, if an art could be taught of forgetting all of which the remembrance is at once useless and afflictive... that the mind might perform its functions without incumbrance, and the past might no longer encroach upon the present.
Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
Language is the dress of thought.
Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.
Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.
Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.
Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.
Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.
Like an image in a dream the world is troubled by love, hatred, and other poisons. So long as the dream lasts, the image appears to be real; but on awaking it vanishes.
Love is only one of many passions.
Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.
Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.
Man, unlike any other thing organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond his work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments.
Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.
Men know that women are an over-match for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.
Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.
Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.
No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.
No man was ever great by imitation.
No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company.
No man will be found in whose mind airy notions do not sometimes tyrannize, and force him to hope or fear beyond the limits of sober probability.
No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.
Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.
Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.
Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.
Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.
One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.
Order is a lovely nymph, the child of Beauty and Wisdom; her attendants are Comfort, Neatness, and Activity; her abode is the valley of happiness: she is always to be found when sought for, and never appears so lovely as when contrasted with her opponent, Disorder.
Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.
Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.
Players, Sir! I look on them as no better than creatures set upon tables and joint stools to make faces and produce laughter, like dancing dogs.
Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.
Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.
Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.
Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
Reproof on her lips, but a smile in her eyes.
Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.
Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.
Secure, whate'er he gives, he gives the best.
Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
Sings. Hope in every sphere of life is a privilege that attaches to action. No action, no hope.
Sir, a man may be so much of everything, that he is nothing of anything.
Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.
Small debts are like small gun shot; they are rattling around us on all sides and one can scarcely escape being wounded. Large debts are like canons, they produce a loud noise, but are of little danger.
So different are the colours of life, as we look forward to the future, or backward to the past; and so different the opinions and sentiments which this contrariety of appearance naturally produces, that the conversation of the old and young ends generally with contempt or pity on either side.
So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.
So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.
Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.
Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.
Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again.
Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return.
That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.
The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.
The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.
The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.
The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.
The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.
The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.
The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity... The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.
The realisation that one is to be hanged in the morning concentrates the mind wonderfully.
The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape.
The traveler that resolutely follows a rough and winding path will sooner reach the end of his journey than he that is always changing his direction, and wastes the hour of daylight in looking for smoother ground and shorter passages.
The true art of memory is the art of attention.
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.
The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.
The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.
The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.
The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.
The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.
The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.
The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty.
Their learning is like bread in a besieged town: every man gets a little, but no man gets a full meal.
There are charms made only for distant admiration.
There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex.
There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.
There are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits that are not good until they are rotten.
There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.
They teach the morals of a whore, and the manners of a dancing master.
Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be.
This man [Lord Chesterfield] I thought had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords.
This merriment of parsons is mighty offensive.
Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.
Those who attain to any excellence commonly spend life in some single pursuit, for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.
To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.
To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.
To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.
To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.
To love one that is great, is almost to be great one's self.
To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.
Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.
Truth, Sir, is a cow, which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull.
Turn on the prudent ant thy heedful eyes. Observe her labors, sluggard, and be wise.
We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.
We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.
We could not have had a better dinner had there been a Synod of Cooks.
We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.
Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess.
What is easy is seldom excellent.
What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.
What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.
What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of the rest of the company.
What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence.
When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.
When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.
When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation.
When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.
When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.
Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.
Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.
Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.
Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.
Words are but the signs of ideas.
You can't be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who's for you and who's against you.
You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.
You never find people laboring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful income.
You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.
Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.
Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.
It is generally agreed, that few men are made better by affluence or exaltation.
No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.
The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endue it.
You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it; for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle.
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