Samuel Johnson

Writer

1709-09-18 – 1784-01-01

Books by Samuel Johnson

A dictionary of the English language
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The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia
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A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland
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Quotes by Samuel Johnson

There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.
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Every state of society is as luxurious as it can be. Men always take the best they can get.
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our triumphant age of plenty is riddled with darker feelings of doubt, cynicism, distrust, boredom and a strange kind of emptiness
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[C]ourage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue, he has no security for preserving any other.
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Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings. Samuel Johnson
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Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye, and while we glide along the stream of time, whatever we leave behind us is always lessening, and that which we approach increasing in magnitude.
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Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.
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Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible. [on hearing a famous violinist]
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The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.
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You can never be wise unless you love reading.
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Our minds, like our bodies, are in continual flux; something is hourly lost, and something acquired.
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I know not why any one but a schoolboy in his declamation should whine over the Commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they grew rich, grew corrupt; and in their corruption sold the lives and freedoms of themselves, and of one another.
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No one is much pleased with a companion who does not increase, in some respect, their fondness for themselves.
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There can be no friendship without confidence, and no confidence without integrity.
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Men know that women are an overmatch for them, and therefore they choose the weakest or the most ignorant. If they did not think so, they never could be afraid of women knowing as much as themselves.
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My congratulations to you, sir. 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.
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Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life . . . the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.
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People have now a-days, (said he,) got a strange opinion that every thing should be taught by lectures. Now, I cannot see that lectures can do so much good as reading the books from which the lectures are taken. I know nothing that can be best taught by lectures, except where experiments are to be shewn. You may teach chymistry by lectures.— You might teach making of shoes by lectures!
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Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.
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Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it. When we enquire into any subject, the first thing we have to do is to know what books have treated of it. This leads us to look at catalogues, and at the backs of books in libraries.
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