Quotes from Samuel Johnson

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense

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

Of all the griefs that harass the distressed, sure the most bitter is a scornful jest

In the bottle discontent seeks for comfort, cowardice for courage, and bashfulness for confidence

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

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

To preserve health is a moral and religious duty, for health is the basis of all social virtues. We can no longer be useful when we are not well.

Pride is seldom delicate, it will please itself with very mean advantages; and envy feels not its own happiness, but when it may be compared with the misery of others

Pride is seldom delicate; it will please itself with very mean advantages.

None can be pleased without praise, and few can be praised without falsehood.

Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords: but, like all other pleasures immoderately enjoyed, the excesses of hope must be expiated by pain; and expectations improperly indulged must end in disappointment.

As peace is the end of war, so to be idle is the ultimate purpose of the busy.

One of the amusements of idleness is reading without the fatigue of close attention; and the world therefore swarms with writers whose wish is not to be studied, but to be read.

Gloomy calm of idle vacancy.

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

Hypocrisy is the necessary burden of villainy.

How guilt once harbour'd in the conscious breast , Intimidates the brave, degrades the great.

Guilt has always its horrors and solicitudes; and, to make it yet more shameful and detestable, it is doomed often to stand in awe of those to whom nothing could give influence or weight but their power of betraying.

Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.

Luxury, so far as it reaches the people, will do good to the race of people; it will strengthen and multiply them. Sir, no nation was ever hurt by luxury; for, as I said before; it can reach but a very few.

You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury--you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle.

Golf: A game in which you claim the privileges of age and retain the playthings of youth

When speculation has done its worst, two and two still make four.