Quotes from Samuel Johnson

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.

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.

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.

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

There are charms made only for distant admiration.

What is easy is seldom excellent.

No member of a society has a right to teach any doctrine contrary to what the society holds to be true.

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

It is our first duty to serve society, and after we have done that, we may attend wholly to the salvation of our own souls.

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

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.

Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away. It is the putrefaction of stagnant life, and is remedied by exercise and motion.

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

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

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

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

He that applauds him who does not deserve praise, is endeavoring to deceive the public; he that hisses in malice or sport, is an oppressor and a robber.

Every desire is a viper in the bosom, who while he was chill was harmless; but when warmth gave him strength, exerted it in poison.

Great works are performed, not by strength, but by perseverance. Those that walk with vigor, three hours a day, will pass in seven years a space equal to the circumference of the globe.

Some have little power to do good, and have likewise little strength to resist evil.

Even those to whom Providence has allotted greater strength of understanding can expect only to improve a single science.

Each person's work is always a portrait of himself.

Disappointment, when it involves neither shame nor loss, is as good as success; for it supplies as many images to the mind, and as many topics to the tongue.

It is necessary to the success of flattery, that it be accommodated to particular circumstances or characters, and enter the heart on that side where the passions are ready to receive it.