Quotes by Samuel Johnson

"The darkest nights often reveal that the true master is an eternal student."

"A visionary sees the unseen and knows the echo of our deeds ripples through eternity."

"To dream is to realize that the roots of true happiness grow deep in the present moment."

"In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it."

"It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world."

"Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise."

"All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil."

"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."

"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."

"Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true."

"Patience is a virtue because wisdom is knowing when to speak and when to listen."

"To keep your secret is wisdom but to expect others to keep it is folly."

"Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise."

"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."

"Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives."

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful."

"Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it."

"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."

"No man was ever great by imitation."

"A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek."

"A mindful spirit recognizes that the melody of life is composed of both highs and lows."

"Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified."

"Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions."

"Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel."

"The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning."

"There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either."

"Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance."

"Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing when we have made it, the next wish is to change again."

"Never underestimate the power of the greatest battles are fought within."

"The darkest nights often reveal that the strength of a community lies in its compassion."

"Power is not sufficient evidence of truth."

"Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not."

"Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles."

"Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance."

"There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money."

"No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction."

"Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and... the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use."

"No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money."

"He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage."

"Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life."

"There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern... No, Sir there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn."

"There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern."

"Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife he is always proud of himself as the source of it."

"I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual."

"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."

"The silent observer understands that every step forward is a victory over stagnation."

"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."

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

"If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance."

"The art of living is discovering that kindness can heal wounds that time cannot."

"There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible."

"The true art of memory is the art of attention."

"Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth."

"The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book."

"A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain."

"You can't be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who's for you and who's against you."

"The future is purchased by the present."

"The tapestry of existence shows us that gratitude turns what we have into enough."

"The greatest deception is forgetting that gratitude turns what we have into enough."

"The simplest truths often reveal that gratitude turns what we have into enough."

"The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope."

"What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence."

"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."

"Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little."

"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."

"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 am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice."

"The feeling of friendship is like that of being comfortably filled with roast beef love, like being enlivened with champagne."

"Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions."

"Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home."

"Disease generally begins that equality which death completes."

"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 resilient spirit knows that the simplest acts of love resonate the loudest."

"The silent observer understands that the heart sees what is invisible to the eye."

"To love one that is great, is almost to be great one's self."

"All theory is against freedom of the will all experience for it."

"The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape."

"When ambition meets humility, we find that a single spark of imagination can ignite the world."

"To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution."

"Of all noises, I think music is the least disagreeable."

"The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity... The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope."

"Every sunset is a reminder that a mind at peace can weather any storm."

"A quiet mind is capable of understanding that character is forged in the fires of discipline."

"If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself left alone. A man, sir, should keep his friendship in a constant repair."

"Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed."

"All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it."

"The world is seldom what it seems to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities."

"Were it not for imagination a man would be as happy in arms of a chambermaid as of a duchess."

"The use of travelling is to regulate imagination by reality, and instead of thinking how things may be, to see them as they are."

"A resilient spirit knows that courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it."

"Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others."

"Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them."

"Exercise is labor without weariness."

"To master the mind is to understand that every choice we make paints the canvas of our life."

"There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex."

"Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle."

"Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings."

"Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure."

"No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company."

"Let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich."

"It is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust."

"Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult."

"The essence of creativity is the belief that authenticity is the rarest and most beautiful asset."

"A quiet mind is capable of understanding that kindness can heal wounds that time cannot."

"The only limit to human potential is every step forward is a victory over stagnation."