Samuel Johnson

“I am willing to love all mankind, except an American.”

“Pleasure of itself is not a vice.”

“All theory is against the freedom of the will; all experience for it.”

“As the Spanish proverb says, "He, who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him." So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.”

“It is better to live rich, than to die rich.”

“The insolence of wealth will creep out.”

“All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to shew how much he can spare.”

“Wine makes a man more pleased with himself. I do not say that it makes him more pleasing to others.”

“Were it not for imagination, Sir, a man would be as happy in the arms of a chambermaid as of a Duchess.”

“I would rather be attacked than unnoticed. For the worst thing you can do to an author is to be silent as to his works.”

“Claret is the liquor for boys; port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.”

“A man who exposes himself when he is intoxicated, has not the art of getting drunk.”

“Worth seeing? yes; but not worth going to see.”

“If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary, be not idle.”

“A Frenchman must be always talking, whether he knows anything of the matter or not; an Englishman is content to say nothing, when he has nothing to say.”

“Greek, sir, is like lace; every man gets as much of it as he can.”

“Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.”

“No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had.”

“One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.”

“The applause of a single human being is of great consequence.”

“Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.”

“Mrs. Montagu has dropt me. Now, Sir, there are people whom one should like very well to drop, but would not wish to be dropped by.”

“Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.”

“Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.”

“My friend was of opinion that when a man of rank appeared in that character [as an author], he deserved to have his merit handsomely allowed.”

“I have two very cogent reasons for not printing any list of subscribers; — one, that I have lost all the names, — the other, that I have spent all the money.”

“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.”

“Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.”

“To let friendship die away by negligence and silence, is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary pilgrimage.”

“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.”

“A man may be so much of every thing, that he is nothing of any thing.”

“Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.”

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

“There is a wicked inclination in most people to suppose an old man decayed in his intellects. If a young or middle-aged man, when leaving a company, does not remember where he laid his hat, it is nothing; but if the same inattention is discovered in an old man, people will shrug up their shoulders, and say, "His memory is going."”

“A man might write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it.”

“Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea.”

“I never have sought the world; the world was not to seek me.”

“Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.”

“It is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, if they can have any thing else to amuse them.”

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

“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.”

“It might as well be said, "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat."”

“It is as bad as bad can be: it is ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-drest.”

“Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.”

“Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.”

“Sir, I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.”

“Sir, I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.”

“I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.”

“Philips, whose touch harmonious could removeTill angels wake thee with a note like thine!”

“A Poet, Naturalist, and Historian,And touched nothing that he did not adorn.”

“How small of all that human hearts endure,Glides the smooth current of domestic joy.”

“Trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay.”

“Words are men's daughters, but God's sons are things.”

“To be of no church is dangerous. Religion, of which the rewards are distant, and which is animated only by faith and hope, will glide by degrees out of the mind unless it be invigorated and reimpressed by external ordinances, by stated calls to worship, and the salutary influence of example.”

“The trappings of a monarchy would set up an ordinary commonwealth.”

“He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.”

“A fellow that makes no figure in company, and has a mind as narrow as the neck of a vinegar-cruet.”

“The atrocious crime of being a young man, which the honourable gentleman has with such spirit and decency charged upon me, I shall neither attempt to palliate nor deny; but content myself with wishing that I may be one of those whose follies may cease with their youth, and not of that number who are ignorant in spite of experience.”

“Gloomy calm of idle vacancy.”

“Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.”

“Wretched un-idea'd girls.”

“Revenge is an act of passion; vengeance of justice. Injuries are revenged; crimes are avenged.”

“Sir, he [Bolingbroke] was a scoundrel and a coward: a scoundrel for charging a blunderbuss against religion and morality; a coward, because he had not resolution to fire it off himself, but left half a crown to a beggarly Scotchman to draw the trigger at his death.”

“My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.”

“By Numbers here from Shame or Censure free,This, only this, provokes the snarling Muse.”

“I am glad that he thanks God for anything.”

“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”

“Of all the Griefs that harrass the Distrest,Sure the most bitter is a scornful Jest”

“Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial, and rather political than religious.”

“When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

“This mournful truth is ev'rywhere confessed — Slow rises worth, by poverty depressed.”

“Sir, your levellers wish to level down as far as themselves; but they cannot bear levelling up to themselves.”

“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”

“Unmoved though Witlings sneer and Rivals rail, Ye Fops, be silent: and ye Wits, be just.”

“I look upon it, that he who does not mind his belly will hardly mind anything else.”

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

“A thousand horrid Prodigies foretold it.And all the maladies of stinking states.”

“This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.”

“Kindness is in our power, even when fondness is not.”

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

“There Poetry shall tune her sacred voice,And wake from ignorance the Western World.”

“A very unclubable man.”

“No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.”

“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.”

“It is always observable that silence propagates itself, and that the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find any thing to say.”

“I do not know, sir, that the fellow is an infidel; but if he be an infidel, he is an infidel as a dog is an infidel; that is to say, he has never thought upon the subject.”

“Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.”

“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.”

“The reciprocal civility of authors is one of the most risible scenes in the farce of life.”

“I am a great friend to public amusements; for they keep people from vice.”

“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.”

“Liberty is, to the lowest rank of every nation, little more than the choice of working or starving.”

“Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young.”

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

“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.”

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

“Let him go abroad to a distant country; let him go to some place where he is not known. Don't let him go to the devil, where he is known.”

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

“I have always suspected that the reading is right, which requires many words to prove it wrong; and the emendation wrong, that cannot without so much labour appear to be right.”

“I never take a nap after dinner but when I have had a bad night; and then the nap takes me.”

“Language is the dress of thought.”

“The only end of writing is to enable the readers better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”

“In lapidary inscriptions a man is not upon oath.”

“Of the blessings set before you make your choice, and be content.”

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

“Whatever withdraws us from the power of our senses; whatever makes the past, the distant, or the future predominate over the present, advances us in the dignity of thinking beings.”

“Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.”

“A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.”

“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.”

“Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.”

“That man is little to be envied whose patriotism would not gain force upon the plain of Marathon, or whose piety would not grow warmer among the ruins of Iona.”

“Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.”

“A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.”

“There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.”

“All this [wealth] excludes but one evil,—poverty.”

“By taking a second wife he pays the highest compliment to the first, by showing that she made him so happy as a married man, that he wishes to be so a second time.”

“There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow; but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved.”

“Employment, sir, and hardships prevent melancholy.”

“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.”

“I am inclined to believe that few attacks either of ridicule or invective make much noise, but by the help of those they provoke.”

“He was so generally civil that nobody thanked him for it.”

“When men come to like a sea-life, they are not fit to live on land.”

“Every man naturally persuades himself that he can keep his resolutions, nor is he convinced of his imbecility but by length of time and frequency of experiment.”

“Goldsmith, however, was a man who whatever he wrote, did it better than any other man could do.”

“No man can taste the fruits of autumn while he is delighting his scent with the flowers of spring.”

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

“This world, where much is to be done and little to be known.”

“Johnson said that he could repeat a complete chapter of "The Natural History of Iceland" from the Danish of Horrebow, the whole of which was exactly thus: "There are no snakes to be met with throughout the whole island." 62 [Chap. lxxii.]”

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

“Here closed in death th' attentive eyesThat saw the manners in the face.”

“The true, strong, and sound mind is the mind that can embrace equally great things and small.”

“Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity.”

“Catch then, O! catch the transient hour, He dies — alas! how soon he dies!”

“I remember a passage in Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield," which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: "I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing."… There was another fine passage too which he struck out: "When I was a young man, being anxious to distinguish myself, I was perpetually starting new propositions. But I soon gave this over; for I found that generally what was new was false."”

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

“He who praises everybody praises nobody.”

“The potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice.”

“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.”

“Books that you may carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are the most useful after all.”

“He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in others.”

“When making your choice in life, do not neglect to live.”

“Fly fishing may be a very pleasant amusement; but angling or float fishing I can only compare to a stick and a string, with a worm at one end and a fool at the other.”

“You see they'd have fitted him to a T.”

“It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.”

“Round numbers are always false.”

“Blown about with every wind of criticism.”

“Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.”

“I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.”

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

“You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not - silence is the sharper sword.”

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

“As with my hat upon my headWith his hat in his hand.”

“Let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich.”

“Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.”

“The limbs will quiver and move after the soul is gone.”

“Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.”

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

“Hawkesworth said of Johnson, "You have a memory that would convict any author of plagiarism in any court of literature in the world."”

“The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking.”

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

“From Thee, great God: we spring, to Thee we tend,Path, motive, guide, original, and end.”

“His conversation does not show the minute-hand, but he strikes the hour very correctly.”

“Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.”

“Let me rejoice in the light which Thou hast imparted; let me serve Thee with active zeal, humbled confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest shall be satisfied with knowledge.”

“Hunting was the labour of the savages of North America, but the amusement of the gentlemen of England.”

“To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.”

“A desire for knowledge is the natural feeling of mankind; and every human being, whose mind is not debauched, will be willing to give all he has to get knowledge.”

“I am very fond of the company of ladies. I like their beauty, I like their delicacy, I like their vivacity, and I like their silence.”

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

“It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.”

“Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.”

“Exercise is labor without weariness.”

“The richest author that ever grazed the common of literature.”

“Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel.”

“When learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foesAnd panting Time toiled after him in vain.”

“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.”

“Cold approbation gave the ling'ring bays,For those who durst not censure, scarce could praise.”

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

“Declamation roared, while Passion slept.”

“The true art of memory is the art of attention.”

“Ah! let not Censure term our fate our choice, For we that live to please must please to live.”

“Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.”

“Let observation with extensive viewSurvey mankind, from China to Peru.”

“Agriculture not only gives riches to a nation, but the only riches she can call her own.”

“But, scarce observ'd, the knowing and the boldFall in the gen'ral massacre of gold.”

“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.”

“Deign on the passing world to turn thine eyes,Toil, envy, want, the patron, and the jail.”

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

“A frame of adamant, a soul of fire,No dangers fright him, and no labors tire.”

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

“He left the name at which the world grew pale,To point a moral, or adorn a tale.”

“One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.”

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

“"Enlarge my life with multitude of days!"That life protracted is protracted woe.”

“He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade.”

“An age that melts in unperceiv'd decay,And glides in modest innocence away.”

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

“Superfluous lags the vet'ran on the stage.”

“Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess.”

“Fears of the brave, and follies of the wise!And Swift expires, a driv'ler and a show.”

“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.”

“Must helpless man, in ignorance sedate,Roll darkling down the torrent of his fate?”

“The world is like a grand staircase, some are going up and some are going down.”

“For patience, sov'reign o'er transmuted ill.”

“Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.”

“With these celestial Wisdom calms the mind,And makes the happiness she does not find.”

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

“Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.”

“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.”

“A transition from an author's book to his conversation, is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke.”

“No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.”

“He that would pass the latter part of life with honour and decency, must, when he is young, consider that he shall one day be old; and remember, when he is old, that he has once been young.”

“Words are but the signs of ideas.”

“Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance and the parent of Liberty.”

“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.”

“As it is necessary not to invite robbery by supineness, so it is our duty not to suppress tenderness by suspicion; it is better to suffer wrong than to do it, and happier to be sometimes cheated than not to trust.”

“Worth seeing? Yes; but not worth going to see.”

“There are, in every age, new errors to be rectified, and new prejudices to be opposed.”

“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.”

“To convince any man against his will is hard, but to please him against his will is justly pronounced by Dryden to be above the reach of human abilities.”

“Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.”

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

“Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.”

“All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.”

“No man is much pleased with a companion, who does not increase, in some respect, his fondness for himself.”

“It is a most mortifying reflection for a man to consider what he has done, compared to what he might have done.”

“No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.”

“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.”

“Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.”

“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.”

“No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.”

“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.”

“That he delights in the misery of others no man will confess, and yet what other motive can make a father cruel?”

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

“The unjustifiable severity of a parent is loaded with this aggravation, that those whom he injures are always in his sight.”

“We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.”

“Avarice is generally the last passion of those lives of which the first part has been squandered in pleasure, and the second devoted to ambition.”

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

“Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore equally destructive to happiness with the diminution of possession, and he that teaches another to long for what he never shall obtain is no less an enemy to his quiet than if he had robbed him of part of his patrimony.”

“To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity.”

“But, perhaps, the excellence of aphorisms consists not so much in the expression of some rare or abstruse sentiment, as in the comprehension of some obvious and useful truth in few words.”

“Disease generally begins that equality which death completes.”

“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. Language is only the instrument of science, and words are but the signs of ideas: I wish, however, that the instrument might be less apt to decay, and that signs might be permanent, like the things which they denote.”

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

“Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.”

“The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.”

“CLUB — An assembly of good fellows, meeting under certain conditions.”

“Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.”

“ESSAY — A loose sally of the mind; an irregular indigested piece; not a regular and orderly composition.”

“Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed.”

“EXCISE — A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid.”

“Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.”

“GRUBSTREET — The name of a street near Moorsfield, London, much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems.”

“The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.”

“LEXICOGRAPHER — A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.”

“There are charms made only for distant admiration.”

“NETWORK — Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections.”

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

“OATS — A grain which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people.”

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

“PATRON, n. One who countenances, supports or protects. Commonly a wretch who supports with insolence, and is repaid in flattery.”

“Love is only one of many passions.”

“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.”

“PENSION — An allowance made to any one without an equivalent. In England it is generally understood to mean pay given to a state hireling for treason to his country.”

“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.”

“Words are but the signs of ideas.”

“It is commonly observed, that when two Englishmen meet, their first talk is of the weather; they are in haste to tell each other, what each must already know, that it is hot or cold, bright or cloudy, windy or calm.”

“Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.”

“Slavery is now no where more patiently endured, than in countries once inhabited by the zealots of liberty.”

“The future is purchased by the present.”

“Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.”

“A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.”

“I know not whether more is to be dreaded from streets filled with soldiers accustomed to plunder, or from garrets filled with scribblers accustomed to lies.”

“Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.”

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

“The joy of life is variety; the tenderest love requires to be renewed by intervals of absence.”

“There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.”

“Advertisements are now so numerous that they are very negligently perused, and it is, therefore, become necessary to gain attention by magnificence of promises, and by eloquence sometimes sublime and sometimes pathetick. Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.”

“I would be loath to speak ill of any person who I do not know deserves it, but I am afraid he is an attorney.”

“He is no wise man that will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.”

“When a man says he had pleasure with a woman he does not mean conversation.”

“Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes of gladness are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks. The flowers which scatter their odours from time to time in the paths of life, grow up without culture from seeds scattered by chance. Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.”

“A man will turn over half a library to make one book.”

“Merriment is always the effect of a sudden impression. The jest which is expected is already destroyed.”

“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.”

“It is seldom that we find either men or places such as we expect them. ... 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 dreadful than its extinction.”

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

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

“The act of writing itself distracts the thoughts, and what is read twice is commonly better remembered than what is transcribed.”

“I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.”

“We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know, because they have never deceived us.”

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

“Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.”

“He who praises everybody, praises nobody.”

“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.”

“He who does not mind his belly, will hardly mind anything else.”

“Nothing … will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome.”

“Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor.”

“To a poet nothing can be useless.”

“Exercise is labor without weariness.”

“[The poet] must write as the interpreter of nature and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of future generations, as a being superior to time and place.”

“You find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”

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

“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.”

“A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected.”

“Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.”

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

“Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.”

“I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.”

“Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanicks laughs at strength.”

“Nobody can write the life of a man but those who have eat and drunk and lived in social intercourse with him.”

“I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.”

“Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.”

“Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.”

“No man was ever great by imitation.”

“Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.”

“It is better to live rich than to die rich.”

“What is easy is seldom excellent.”

“The first years of man must make provision for the last.”

“I will be conquered; I will not capitulate.”

“Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance.”

“But it is evident, that these bursts of universal distress are more dreaded than felt; thousands and ten thousands flourish in youth, and wither in age, without the knowledge of any other than domestic evils, and share the same pleasures and vexa\xadtions, whether their kings are mild or cruel, whether the armies of their country pursue their enemies or retreat before them.”

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

“Example is always more efficacious than precept.”

“By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show.”

“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.”

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

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

“We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.”

“The endearing elegance of female friendship.”

“A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority.”

“The world is not yet exhausted: let me see something to-morrow which I never saw before.”

“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.”

“"Some," answered Imlac, "have indeed said that the soul is material, but I can scarcely believe that any man has thought it, who knew how to think; for all the conclusions of reason enforce the immateriality of mind, and all the notices of sense and investigations of science, concur to prove the unconsciousness of matter.”

“Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.”

“Let us take a patriot, where we can meet him; and, that we may not flatter ourselves by false appearances, distinguish those marks which are certain, from those which may deceive; for a man may have the external appearance of a patriot, without the constituent qualities; as false coins have often lustre, though they want weight.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Some claim a place in the list of patriots, by an acrimonious and unremitting opposition to the court. This mark is by no means infallible. Patriotism is not necessarily included in rebellion. A man may hate his king, yet not love his country.”

“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.”

“The greater, far the greater number of those who rave and rail, and inquire and accuse, neither suspect nor fear, nor care for the publick; but hope to force their way to riches, by virulence and invective, and are vehement and clamorous, only that they may be sooner hired to be silent.”

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

“The true Genius is a mind of large general powers, accidentally determined to some particular direction.”

“What is easy is seldom excellent.”

“Those writers who lay on the watch for novelty, could have little hope of greatness; for great things cannot have escaped former observation.”

“Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.”

“Language is the dress of thought.”

“The usual fortune of complaint is to excite contempt more than pity.”

“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.”

“Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.”

“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.”

“New things are made familiar, and familiar things are made new.”

“It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.”

“Whoever wishes to attain an English style, familiar but not coarse, and elegant but not ostentatious, must give his days and nights to the volumes of Addison.”

“At seventy-seven it is time to be in earnest.”

“Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason.”

“Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes me uneasy; and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy.”

“'Paradise Lost' is one of the books which the reader admires and lays down, and forgets to take up again. None ever wished it longer than it is.”

“Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all.”

“He that thinks himself capable of astonishing may write blank verse: but those that hope only to please must condescend to rhyme.”

“Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.”

“The true art of memory is the art of attention.”

“He delighted to tread upon the brink of meaning.”

“Paradise Lost is a book that, once put down, is very hard to pick up again.”

“The Churchyard abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo.”

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

“His David Garrick's] death has eclipsed the gaiety of nations, and impoverished the public stock of harmless pleasure.”

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

“Officious, innocent, sincere,Of every friendless name the friend.”

“To be idle and to be poor have always been reproaches, and therefore every man endeavors with his utmost care to hide his poverty from others, and his idleness from himself.”

“In misery's darkest cavern known,And lonely want retir'd to die.”

“Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.”

“And sure th' Eternal Master foundHis single talent well employ'd.”

“There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.”

“Then with no throbs of fiery pain,And freed his soul the nearest way.”

“When any calamity has been suffered the first thing to be remembered is, how much has been escaped.”

“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.”

“Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.”

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

“I fancy mankind may come, in time, to write all aphoristically, except in narrative; grow weary of preparation, and connection, and illustration, and all those arts by which a big book is made.”

“A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him.”

“A man may write at any time, if he will set himself doggedly.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The chief glory of every people arises from its authors.”

“I have, all my life long, been lying till noon; yet I tell all young men, and tell them with great sincerity, that nobody who does not rise early will ever do any good.”

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

“Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything.”

“So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.”

“Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.”

“Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.”

“A cucumber should be well sliced, and dressed with pepper and vinegar, and then thrown out, as good for nothing.”

“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.”

“Come, let me know what it is that makes a Scotchman happy!”

“He that overvalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them.”

“If the man who turnips cries,Have a turnip than his father.”

“Treating your adversary with respect is striking soft in battle.”

“Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.”

“He was a very good hater.”

“Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.”

“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.”

“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.”

“The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.”

“A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.”

“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.”

“It is very strange, and very melancholy, that the paucity of human pleasures should persuade us ever to call hunting one of them.”

“The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.”

“I hate a fellow whom pride or cowardice or laziness drives into a corner, and who does nothing when he is there but sit and growl. Let him come out as I do, and bark.”

“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.”

“There is in this world no real delight (excepting those of sensuality), but exchange of ideas in conversation.”

“Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?”

“Was there ever yet any thing written by mere man that was wished longer by its readers, excepting Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, and the Pilgrim's Progress?”

“To get a name can happen but to few; it is one of the few things that cannot be brought. It is the free gift of mankind, which must be deserved before it will be granted, and is at last unwillingly bestowed.”

“Sir, what is Poetry? Why, Sir, it is much easier to say what it is not. We all know what light is: but it is not easy to tell what it is.”

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

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

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

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

“A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.”

“A generous and elevated mind is distinguished by nothing more certainly than an eminent degree of curiosity.”

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

“Tom Birch is as brisk as a bee in conversation; but no sooner does he take a pen in his hand than it becomes a torpedo to him, and benumbs all his faculties.”

“Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.”

“All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.”

“One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.”

“I'll come no more behind your scenes, David ; for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities.”

“The happiest conversation is that of which nothing is distinctly remembered, but a general effect of pleasing impression.”

“Is not a patron, my lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground encumbers him with help? The notice which you have been pleased to take of my labors, had it been early, had been kind; but it has been delayed till I am indifferent, and cannot enjoy it; till I am solitary, and cannot impart it; till I am known, and do not want it.”

“Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.”

“[Of Lord Chesterfield] This man, I thought, had been a Lord among wits; but, I find, he is only a wit among Lords!”

“So many objections may be made to everything, that nothing can overcome them but the necessity of doing something.”

“A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.”

“Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.”

“A lady once asked him how he came to define 'pastern', the knee of a horse: instead of making an elaborate defence, as might be expected, he at once answered, "Ignorance, Madam, pure ignorance."”

“What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more.”

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

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

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

“That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner.”

“Towering is the confidence of twenty-one.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Nothing is little to him that feels it with great sensibility.”

“Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.”

“A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself.”

“The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty.”

“Great abilities are not requisite for an Historian; for in historical composition, all the greatest powers of the human mind are quiescent. He has facts ready to his hand; so there is no exercise of invention. Imagination is not required in any high degree; only about as much as is used in the lower kinds of poetry.”

“It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other.”

“Norway, too, has noble wild prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious noble wild prospects. But, Sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!”

“You teach your daughters the diameters of the planets and wonder when you are done that they do not delight in your company.”

“A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.”

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

“But if he does really think that there is no distinction between virtue and vice, why, Sir, when he leaves our houses let us count our spoons.”

“Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.”

“I remember very well, when I was at Oxford, an old gentleman said to me, "Young man, ply your book diligently now, and acquire a stock of knowledge; for when years come upon you, you will find that poring upon books will be but an irksome task."”

“Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.”

“Hume, and other sceptical innovators, are vain men, and will gratify themselves at any expence. Truth will not afford sufficient food to their vanity; so they have betaken themselves to errour. Truth, Sir, is a cow which will yield such people no more milk, and so they are gone to milk the bull. If I could have allowed myself to gratify my vanity at the expence of truth, what fame might I have acquired.”

“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.”

“Sherry is dull, naturally dull; but it must have taken him a great deal of pains to become what we now see him. Such an excess of stupidity, sir, is not in Nature.”

“Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.”

“Sir, a woman's preaching is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs. It is not done well; but you are surprised to find it done at all.”

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

“I [Boswell] happened to say, it would be terrible if he should not find a speedy opportunity of returning to London, and be confined in so dull a place. JOHNSON: "Don't, Sir, accustom yourself to use big words for little matters. It would not be terrible, though I were to be detained some time here."”

“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.”

“I refute it thus.”

“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.”

“Why, Sir, it is difficult to settle the proportion of iniquity between them.”

“What is written without effort is in general read without pleasure.”

“So far is it from being true that men are naturally equal, that no two people can be half an hour together, but one shall acquire an evident superiority over the other.”

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

“Shakspeare never has six lines together without a fault. Perhaps you may find seven: but this does not refute my general assertion.”

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

“It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.”

“From the middle of life onward, only he remains vitally alive who is ready to die with life.”

“All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it.”

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

“That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.”

“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.”

“Johnson observed, that "he did not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but he believed the gentleman was an attorney."”

“Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it.”

“A gentleman who had been very unhappy in marriage, married immediately after his wife died: Johnson said, it was the triumph of hope over experience.”

“I am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice.”

“A decent provision for the poor is the true test of civilization.”

“I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just.”

“A cow is a very good animal in the field; but we turn her out of a garden.”

“It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability.”

“Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.”

“Actions are visible, though motives are secret.”

“Attack is the reaction; I never think I have hit hard unless it rebounds.”

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

“Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.”

“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 one book.”

“Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.”

“Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.”

“There are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits that are not good until they are rotten.”

“Hell is paved with good intentions.”

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

“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.”

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

“That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner.”

“There is now less flogging in our great schools than formerly, but then less is learned there; so that what the boys get at one end they lose at the other.”

“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.”

“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 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.”

“This is one of the disadvantages of wine, it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.”

“If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?”

“No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.”

“While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.”

“Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.”

“Sir, you have but two topicks, yourself and me. I am sick of both.”

“Life admits not of delays; when pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it. Every hour takes away part of the things that please us, and perhaps part of our disposition to be pleased.”

“I [Boswell] was somewhat disappointed in finding that the edition of The English Poets, for which he was to write Prefaces and Lives, was not an undertaking directed by him: but that he was to furnish a Preface and Life to any poet the booksellers pleased. I asked him if he would do this to any dunce's works, if they should ask him. JOHNSON: "Yes, Sir, and say he was a dunce."”

“Depend upon it, Sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”

“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.”

“Here's to the next insurrection of the negroes in the West Indies.”

“It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.”

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

“All argument is against it; but all belief is for it.”

“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.”

“It is man's own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age.”

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

“Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.”

“Every state of society is as luxurious as it can be. Men always take the best they can get.”

“A country governed by a despot is an inverted cone.”