Quotes by Samuel Johnson
The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.
Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.
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.
The world is seldom what it seems; to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.
Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.
Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.
It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.
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.
The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.
No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.
Sings. Hope in every sphere of life is a privilege that attaches to action. No action, no hope.
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.
Sir, you have but two topics, yourself and me. I am sick of both.
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.
You never find people laboring to convince you that you may live very happily upon a plentiful income.
Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.
Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.
Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.
Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.
So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.
No man was ever great by imitation.
A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.
Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.
A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.
He was dull in a new way, and that made many people think him great.
