Samuel Johnson Quotes

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.

He who makes a beast of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man.

He who praises everybody, praises nobody.

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything. [Charity]

Health is certainly more valuable than money, because it is by health that money is procured; but thousands and millions are of small avail to alleviate the tortures of the gout, to repair the broken organs of sense, or resuscitate the powers of digestion. Poverty is, indeed, an evil from which we naturally fly; but let us not run from one enemy to another, nor take shelter in the arms of sickness.
[Health]

Health is so necessary to all the duties, as well as pleasures of life, that the crime of squandering it is equal to the folly. [Health]

History can be frmed from permanent monuments and records; but lives can only be written from personal knowledge, which is growing every day less, and in a short time is lost forever. [Biography]

Hope is always liberal, and they that trust her promises make little scruple of reveling today on the profits of tomorrow. [Hope]

Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords. [Hope]

Hope is necessary in every condition. The miseries of poverty, sickness and captivity would, without this comfort, be insupportable. [Hope]

Hope is the chief blessing of man; and that hope only is rational of which we are sensible that it cannot deceive us. [Hope]

Hope itself is a species of happiness, and perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.

How gloomy would be the mansions of the dead to him who did, not know that he should never die; that what now acts, shall continue its agency, and what now thinks, shall think on forever. [Immortality]

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy; affectation, part of the chosen trappings of folly; the one completes a villain, the other only finishes a fop. Contempt is the proper punishment of affectation, and detestation the just consequence of hypocrisy. [Hypocrisy]

I am a reat friend to public amusements, for they keep people from vice. [Amusements]

I am not yet so lost in lexicography, as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.

I believe marriages would in general be as happy, and often more so, if they were all made by the Lord Chancellor, upon a due consideration of the characters and circumstances, without the parties having any choice in the matter. [Marriage]

I deny the lawfulness of telling a lie to a sick man for fear of alarming him; you have no business with consequences, you are to tell the truth.

I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.