Quotes from Samuel Johnson

I have found you an argument; but I am not obliged to find you an understanding.

Guilt once harbored in the conscious breast, intimidates the brave, degrades the great.

A fishing pole is a stick with a hook at one end and a fool on the other

Exercise is labor without weariness.

Where secrecy or mystery begins, vice or roguery is not far off.

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

Lawyers know life practically. A bookish man should always have them to converse with.

Words are but the signs of ideas.

The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow.

Affectation is to be always distinguished from hypocrisy as being the art of counterfeiting those qualities, which we might with innocence and safety, be known to want. Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy; affectation part of the chosen trappings of folly

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. The world is not yet exhausted; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw be

Whoever envies another confesses his superiority.

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

Always set 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.

In all pleasure hope is a considerable part

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

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

To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.

There are charms made only for distance admiration.

There are charms made only for distant admiration.

The habit of looking on the bright side of every event is worth more than a thousand pounds a year.

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.

Pleasure itself is not a vice

Questioning is not the mode of conversation among gentlemen.