Quotes from Samuel Johnson

Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.

I'll come no more behind your scenes, David [Garrick]; for the silk stockings and white bosoms of your actresses excite my amorous propensities.

That fellow seems to me to possess but one idea, and that is a wrong one.

Power is not sufficient evidence of truth.

The law is the last result of human wisdom acting upon human experience for the benefit of the public.

There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex.

Greek, sir, is like lace; every man gets as much of it as he can.

When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

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

The world is seldom what it seems to man, who dimly sees, realities appear as dreams, and dreams realities.

Every man has a right to utter what he thinks truth, and every other man has a right to knock him down for it. Martyrdom is the test.

Example is always more efficacious than precept.

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.

The Churchyard abounds with images which find a mirror in every mind, and with sentiments to which every bosom returns an echo.

Lexicographer—A writer of dictionaries, a harmless drudge.

Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others.

A am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice.

Towering in the confidence of twenty-one.

Much may be made of a Scotchman if he be caught young.

Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives.

Frugality may be termed the daughter of Prudence, the sister of Temperance, and the parent of Liberty.

Catch, then, oh catch the transient hour; Improve each moment as it flies! Life's a short summer, man a flower; He dies — alas! how soon he dies!

You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not - silence is the sharper sword.