“It has been observed in all ages that the advantages of nature or of fortune have contributed very little to the promotion of happiness; and that those whom the splendour of their rank, or the extent of their capacity, have placed upon the summits of human life, have not often given any just occasion to envy in those who look up to them from a lower station; whether it be that apparent superiority incites great designs, and great designs are naturally liable to fatal miscarriages; or that the general lot of mankind is misery, and the misfortunes of those whose eminence drew upon them an universal attention, have been more carefully recorded, because they were more generally observed, and have in reality only been more conspicuous than others, not more frequent, or more severe.”
Source: Life of Savage;
“Good sense alone is a sedate and quiescent quality, which manages its possessions well, but does not increase them; it collects few materials for its own operations, and preserves safety, but never gains supremacy.”
Source: Johnson's Lives of the British poets completed by W. Hazlitt
“None are happy but by anticipation of change.”
“Nothing is more idle than to inquire after happiness, which nature has kindly placed within our reach.”
Source: Rasselas, prince of Abyssinia
“So scanty is our present allowance of happiness that in many situations life could scarcely be supported if hope were not allowed to relieve the present hour by pleasures borrowed from the future.”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius
“Terrestrial happiness is of short duration. The brightness of the flame is wasting its fuel; the fragrant flower is passing away in its own odors.”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With An Essay on His Life and Genius
“We seldom require more to the happiness of the present hour than to surpass him that stands next before us.”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq
“Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.”
“Wine makes a man better pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.”
“Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq
“Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.”
Source: The table talk of Samuel Johnson
“To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq
“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 natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.”
Source: The Rambler
“There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.”
“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.”
Source: Life of Johnson: Including Boswell's Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides and Johnson's Diary of a Journey Into North Wales
“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.”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq
“Yet it is necessary to hope, though hope should always be deluded; for hope itself is happiness, and its frustrations, however frequent, are yet less dreadsul than its extinction.”
“As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.”
“Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq
“Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought; our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.”
“Sir, you must not neglect doing a thing immediately good from fear of remote evil; - from fear of its being abused.”
“If we will have the kindness of others, we must endure their follies.”
Source: The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752
“We seldom learn the true want of what we have till it is discovered that we can have no more.”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay
“Idleness is often covered by turbulence and hurry. He that neglects his known duty and real employment naturally endeavours to crowd his mind with something that may bar out the remembrance of his own folly, and does any thing but what he ought to do with eager diligence, that he may keep himself in his own favour.”
Source: The Rambler: A Periodical Paper, Published in 1750, 1751, 1752
“To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise... Let him take a course of chemistry, or a course of rope-dance, or a course of any thing to which he is inclined at the time. Let him contrive to have as many retreats for his mind as he can, as many things to which it can fly from itself.”
“Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.”
“Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. Every advance into knowledge opens new prospects, and produces new incitements to farther progress.”
Source: Life and Writings
“Since every man is obliged to promote happiness and virtue, he should be careful not to mislead unwary minds, by appearing to set too high a value upon things by which no real excellence is conferred.”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D..: The Rambler
“The disturbers of our happiness, in this world, are our desires, our griefs, and our fears.”
“To have the management of the mind is a great art, and it may be attained in a considerable degree by experience and habitual exercise.”
Source: The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished
“He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.”
“To hear complaints is wearisome alike to the wretched and the happy.”
Source: Rasselas
“What we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention; so there is but one half to be employed on what we read.”
Source: The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished
“Life is barren enough surely with all her trappings; let us be therefore cautious of how we strip her.”
Source: Anecdotes of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. during the last twenty years of his life
“Reproof should not exhaust its power upon petty failings.”
Source: The Beauties of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Consisting of Maxims and Observations, Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous, to which are Now Added, Biographical Anecdotes of the Doctor, Selected from the Late Productions of Mrs. Piozzi, Mr. Boswell, ...
“All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.”
Source: The life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D., comprehending an account of his studies, and numerous works, in chronological order: a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition, never before published; the whole exhibiting a view of literature and literary men in Great Britain, for near half a century during which he flourished
“Every period of life is obliged to borrow its happiness from time to come.”
Source: The Rambler: In Four Volumes
“Philosophers there are who try to make themselves believe that this life is happy; but they believe it only while they are saying it, and never yet produced conviction in a single mind.”
Source: Essay on the life and genius of Dr. Johnson [by Arthur Murphy] Poems. Rasselas, prince of Abissinia. Letters
“No man can enjoy happiness without thinking that he enjoys it.”
Source: The Rambler: In Four Volumes
“The size of a man's understanding might always be justly measured by his mirth.”
“When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality.”
Source: The Rambler
“That all who are happy are equally happy is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. A small drinking glass and a large one may be equally full, but the large one holds more than the small.”
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
“The world will never be long without some good reason to hate the unhappy; their real faults are immediately detected; and if those are not sufficient to sink them into infamy, an individual weight of calumny will be super-added.”
“Happiness is enjoyed only in proportion as it is known; and such is the state or folly of man, that it is known only by experience of its contrary.”
Source: The Adventurer
“The fiction of happiness is propagated by every tongue and confirmed by every look till at last all profess the joy which they do not feel and consent to yield to the general delusion.”
Source: The Idler: With Additional Essays
“Labor, if it were not necessary for existence, would be indispensable for the happiness of man.”
“"I fly from pleasure," said the prince, "because pleasure has ceased to please; I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others."”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq
“Try and forget our cares and sickness, and contribute, as we can to the happiness of each other.”
“I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government rather than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.”
