Quotes by "Samuel Johnson"

I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am.

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

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

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

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

He that reads and grows no wiser seldom suspects his own deficiency, but complains of hard words and obscure sentences, and asks why books are written which cannot be understood.

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 a few words. We frequently fall into error and folly, not because the true principles of action are not known, but because, for a time, they are not remembered; and he may therefore be justly numbered among the benefactors of mankind who contracts the great rules of life into short sentences, that may be easily impressed on the memory, and taught by frequent recollection to recur habitually to the mind.

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

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

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.

A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

The certainty that life cannot be long, and the probability that it will be much shorter than nature allows, ought to awaken every man to the active prosecution of whatever he is desirous to perform. It is true, that no diligence can ascertain success; death may intercept the swiftest career; but he who is cut off in the execution of an honest undertaking has at least the honour of falling in his rank, and has fought the battle, though he missed the victory.

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