Quotes by Samuel Johnson
A man will turn over half a library to make one book.
My dear friend, clear your mind of can't.
There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.
A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority.
The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.
You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not - silence is the sharper sword.
If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?
Actions are visible, though motives are secret.
Worth seeing? Yes; but not worth going to see.
Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions.
Small debts are like small shot; they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon; of loud noise, but little danger.
He that undervalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them.
That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner.
There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.
When making your choice in life, do not neglect to live.
Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.
Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own.
From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life.
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.
A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.
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.
A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.
Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.
Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.
Their learning is like bread in a besieged town: every man gets a little, but no man gets a full meal.
