“The prospect of penury in age is so gloomy and terrifying that every man who looks before him must resolve to avoid it; and it must be avoided generally by the science of sparing.”
Source: The Rambler: In Four Volumes
“None of the projects or designs which exercise the mind of man are equally subject to obstructions and disappointments with the pursuit of fame.”
Source: The Rambler: In Four Volumes
“The love of fame is a passion natural and universal, which no man, however high or mean, however wise or ignorant, was yet able to despise.”
“How few of his friends' houses would a man choose to be at when he is sick.”
“As the greatest liar tells more truths than falsehoods, so may it be said of the worst man, that he does more good than evil.”
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
“The good of our present state is merely comparative, and the evil which every man feels will be sufficient to disturb and harass him if he does not know how much he escapes.”
Source: The Rambler
“Every man that has felt pain knows how little all other comforts can gladden him to whom health is denied. Yet who is there does not sometimes hazard it for the enjoyment of an hour?”
Source: The Rambler: In Four Volumes..
“The commodiousness of money is indeed great; but there are some advantages which money cannot buy, and which therefore no wise man will by the love of money be tempted to forego.”
Source: Works
“In such a government as ours no man is appointed to an office because he is the fittest for it--nor hardly in any other government--because there are so many connections and dependencies to be studied.”
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Together with A Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
“Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world.”
Source: The Rambler
“The life of a solitary man will be certainly miserable, but not certainly devout.”
Source: Rasselas
“Depend upon it, sir, it is when you come close to a man in conservation that you discover what his real abilities are; to make a speech in a public assembly is a knack.”
“A man who always talks for fame never can be pleasing. The man who talks to unburthen his mind is the man to delight you.”
“He that resigns his peace to little casualties, and suffers the course of his life to be interrupted for fortuitous inadvertencies or offences, delivers up himself to the direction of the wind, and loses all that constancy and equanimity which constitutes the chief praise of a wise man.”
Source: The Rambler
“Liberty is the parent of truth, but truth and decency are sometimes at variance. All men and all propositions are to be treated here as they deserve, and there are many who have no claim either to respect or decency.”
Source: The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: In thirteen volumes. ...
“I doubt if there ever was a man who was not gratified by being told that he was liked by the women.”
Source: Johnsoniana; or supplement to Boswell; being Anecdotes and sayings of Dr. Johnson, etc
“No man sympathizes with the sorrows of vanity.”
Source: The beauties of Johnson: choice selections from his works
“Most men are more willing to indulge in easy vices than to practise laborious virtues.”
“Wit will never make a man rich, but there are places where riches will always make a wit.”
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, ...
“Men have been wise in many different modes; but they have always laughed the same way.”
“There may be other reasons for a man's not speaking in publick than want of resolution: he may have nothing to say.”
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
“Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. The power of invention has been conferred by nature upon few, and the labour of learning those sciences which may, by mere labour, be obtained, is too great to be willingly endured; but every man can exert some judgment as he has upon the works of others; and he whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of critic.”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.: D., with an Essay on His Life and Genius
“It is incident to physicians, I am afraid, beyond all other men, to mistake subsequence for consequence.”
“What is the reason that women servants ... have much lower wages than men servants ... when in fact our female house servants work much harder than the male?”
“Surely, it is much easier to respect a man who has always had respect, than to respect a man who we know was last year no better than ourselves, and will be no better next year.”
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
“The labor of rising from the ground will be great, ... but as we mount higher, the earth's attraction, and the body's gravity, will be gradually diminished till we arrive at a region where the man will float in the air without any tendency to fall.”
Source: The reader's Johnson: a representative selection from his writings
“If lawyers were to undertake no causes till they were sure they were just, a man might be precluded altogether from a trial of his claim, though, were it judicially examined, it might be found a very just claim.”
Source: Journey to the Hebrides: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland & The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
“Man is a transitory being, and his designs must partake of the imperfections their author.”
Source: The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq. in Verse and Prose: Containing the Principal Notes of Drs. Warburton and Warton: Illustrations, and Critical and Explanatory Remarks, by Johnson, Wakefield, A. Chalmers ... and Others; to which are Added, Now First Published, Some Original Letters, with Additional Observations, and Memoirs of the Life of the Author
“Inquiries into the heart are not for man.”
Source: The Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets: Cowley. Denham. Milton. Butler. Rochester. Roscommon. Otway. Waller. Pomfret. Dorset. Stepney. J. Phillips. Walsh. Dryden. Smith. Duke. King. Sprat. Halifax. Parnell. Garth. Rowe. Addison. Hughes. Sheffield, duke of Buckinghamshire
“A newswriter is a man without virtue, who lies at home for his own profit.”
Source: Works of Samuel Johnson
“We found in the course of our journey the convenience of having disencumbered ourselves, by laying aside whatever we could spare; for it is not to be imagined without experience, how in climbing crags and treading bogs, and winding through narrow and obstructed passages, a little bulk will hinder, and a little weight will burden; or how often a man that has pleased himself at home with his own resolution, will, in the hour of darkness and fatigue, be content to leave behind him everything but himself.”
Source: Journey to the Hebrides: A Journey to the Western Islands of Scotland & The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides
“Wine gives great pleasure, and every pleasure is of itself a good. and
A man should cultivate his mind so as to have that confidence and readiness without wine, which wine gives.”
Source: The Life of Samuel Johnson
“Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities, superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world; and, whatever apparent disadvantages he may suffer in the comparison with others, he has some invisible distinctions, some latent reserve of excellence, which he throws into the balance, and by which he generally fancies that it is turned in his favour.”
Source: Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings
“A man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company”
“I would injure no man, and should provoke no resentment. I would relieve every distress, and should enjoy the benedictions of gratitude. I would choose my friends among the wise and my wife among the virtuous, and therefore should be in no danger from treachery or unkindness. My children should by my care be learned and pious, and would repay to my age what their childhood had received.”
Source: Rasselas
“So willing is every man to flatter himself, that the difference between approving laws, and obeying them, is frequently forgotten; he that acknowledges the obligations of morality and pleases his vanity with enforcing them to others, concludes himself zealous in the cause of virtue.”
Source: The Rambler
“Most men are unwilling to be taught.”
“Nothing is more common than for men to make partial and absurd distinctions between vices of equal enormity, and to observe some of the divine commands with great scrupulousness, while they violate others, equally important, without any concern, or the least apparent conciousness of guilt. Alas, it is only wisdom which perceives this tragedy.”
“No man should attempt to teach others what he has never learned himself”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: With Murphy's Essay
“It is astonishing that any man can forbear enquiring seriously whether there is a God; whether God is just; whether this life is the only state of existence.”
Source: Sermons
“To love their country has been considered as virtue in men, whose love could not be otherwise than blind, because their preference was made without, a comparison; but it has never been my fortune to find, either in ancient or modern writers, any honourable mention of those, who have, with equal blindness, hated their country.”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Lives of the poets
“He that pines with hunger, is in little care how others shall be fed. The poor man is seldom studious to make his grandson rich.”
Source: The works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Together with his life, and notes on his Lives of the poets, by Sir John Hawkins, Knt. In eleven volumes ...
“Where no man thinks himself under any obligation to submit to another, and, instead of co-operating in one great scheme, every one hastens through by-paths to private profit, no great change can suddenly be made; nor is superior knowledge of much effect, where every man resolves to use his own eyes and his own judgment, and every one applauds his own dexterity and diligence, in proportion as he becomes rich sooner than his neighbour.”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Lives of the poets
“It is certain that success naturally confirms in us a favourable opinion of our own abilities. Scarce any man is willing to allot to accident, friendship, and a thousand causes, which concur in every event without human contrivance or interposition, the part which they may justly claim in his advancement. We rate ourselves by our fortune rather than our virtues, and exorbitant claims are quickly produced by imaginary merit.”
Source: The Rambler: In Four Volumes..
“It is a common error, and the greater and more mischievous for being so common, to believe that repentance best becomes and most concerns dying men. Indeed, what is necessary every hour of our life is necessary in the hour of death too, and as long as one lives he will have need of repentance, and therefore it is necessary in the hour of death too; but he who hath constantly exercised himself in it in his health and vigor, will do it with less pain in his sickness and weakness; and he who hath practiced it all his life, will do it with more ease and less perplexity in the hour of his death.”
“The imaginations excited by the view of an unknown and untravelled wilderness are not such as arise in the artificial solitude of parks and gardens... The phantoms which haunt a desert are want, and misery, and danger; the evils of dereliction rush upon the thoughts; man is made unwillingly acquainted with his own weakness, and meditation shows him only how little he can sustain, and how little he can perform.”
Source: Works: With an Essay on His Life and Genius
“The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.”
“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.”
Source: The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: With an Essay on His Life and Genius /c by Arthur Murphy, Esq
“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”
“Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.”
