Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Wealth, Charity
He who praises everybody praises nobody.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Praise, One liners
Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Wise, Love, Wisdom
When desperate ills demand a speedy cure, distrust is cowardice, and prudence folly.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Decision
The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Love, Life, Enthusiasm
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Libraries, Knowledge
A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity.
—Samuel Johnson
Without the intervention of the civil authority what would our percepts become?- Platonic laws.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Authority
The use of traveling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Tourism, Thinking, Travel
To convince any man against his will is hard, but to please him against his will is justly pronounced by Dryden to be above the reach of human abilities.
—Samuel Johnson
Learning once made popular is no longer learning; it has the appearance of something which we have bestowed upon ourselves, as the dew appears to rise from the field which it refreshes.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Learning
To act from pure benevolence is not possible for finite beings. Human benevolence is mingled with vanity, interest or some other motive.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Kindness
Exercise is labor without weariness.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Exercise
The purpose of an injury is to vex and trouble me.—Now, nothing can do that to him that is truly valiant.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Injury
The true effect of genuine politeness seems to be rather ease than pleasure.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Politeness
No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Art, Money
Men are seldom more innocently employed than when they are honestly making money.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Money
We ought not to raise expectations which it is not in our power to satisfy.—It is more pleasing to see smoke brightening into flame, than flame sinking into smoke.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Encouragement
Every man ought to aim at eminence, not by pulling others down, but by raising himself; and enjoy the pleasures of his own superiority, whether imaginary or real, without interrupting others in the same felicity.
—Samuel Johnson
The longer we live the more we think and the higher the value we put on friendship and tenderness towards parents and friends.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Values, Value
Many things difficult in design prove easy in performance.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Performance, Planning, Design
An old friend never can be found, and nature has provided that he cannot easily be lost.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Friendship
As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Goodness
A desire of knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being whose mind is not debauched will be willing to give all that he has to get knowledge.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Knowledge
Pride is seldom delicate, it will please itself with very mean advantages; and envy feels not its own happiness, but when it may be compared with the misery of others.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Pride, Envy
The natural progress of the works of men is from rudeness to convenience, from convenience to elegance, and from elegance to nicety.
—Samuel Johnson
Penal laws—by which every man’s danger becomes every man’s safety, and by which, though all are restrained, yet all are benefited.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Law
Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment.
—Samuel Johnson
Every man is, or hopes to be, an idler.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Idleness
There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.
—Samuel Johnson
Topics: Gratitude, Obligation
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Joseph Addison English Poet, Playwright, Politician
- Lytton Strachey British Biographer
- William Hazlitt English Essayist
- Gladys Bronwyn Stern British Writer
- A. C. Benson English Essayist
- Arthur Helps British Essayist, Historian
- Lawrence Durrell English Author, Poet
- V. S. Pritchett British Short Story Writer
- Rudyard Kipling British Children’s Books Writer
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson British Poet
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