Quotes by Samuel Johnson
It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.
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.
I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.
Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?
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.
Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable.
No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.
A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.
Language is the dress of thought.
Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles.
This man [Lord Chesterfield] I thought had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords.
Reproof on her lips, but a smile in her eyes.
Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.
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.
Exercise is labor without weariness.
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.
A fly may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.
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.
There are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits that are not good until they are rotten.
Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.
All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.
Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.
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.
Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.
