Quotes from Samuel Johnson

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.

A man must assume the moral burden of his own boredom.

The pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and the mind can only repose on the stability of truth.

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

All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.

A man who writes a book, thinks himself wiser or wittier than the rest of mankind; he supposes that he can instruct or amuse them, and the publick to whom he appeals, must, after all, be the judges of his pretensions.

Never trust a man who writes more than he reads.

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

The end of writing is to instruct; the end of poetry is to instruct by pleasing.

The opinions prevalent in one age, as truths above the reach of controversy, are confuted and rejected in another, and rise again to reception in remoter times. Thus the human mind is kept in motion without progress.

Prosperity is too apt to prevent us from examining our conduct; but adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us.

A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see.

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.

I have found the world kinder than I expected, but less just.

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write.

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

The size of a man's understanding may always be justly measured by his mirth.

God himself, sir, doesn't propose to judge man until the end of his days. (So why should you and I? ~ this latter part is added by Napoleon Hill)

The young man, who intends no ill, Believes that none is intended, and therefore Acts with openness and candor: but his father, having suffered the injuries of fraud, is impelled to suspect, and too often allured to practice it.

Your aspirations are your possibilities.

I can discover within me no power of perception which is not glutted with its proper pleasure, yet I do not feel myself delighted. Man has surely some latent sense for which this place affords no gratification, or he has some desires distinct from sense which must be satisfied before he can be happy.

Is there such depravity in man as that he should injure another without benefit to himself?

Parts are not to be examined till the whole has been surveyed; there is a kind of intellectual remoteness necessary for the comprehension of any great work in its full design and its true proportions; a close approach shews the smaller niceties, but the beauty of the whole is discerned no longer.

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