Quotes from Samuel Johnson

There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, toil, envy, want, and patron.

Remember that nothing will supply the want of prudence, and that negligence and irregularity long continued will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible.

There are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits that are not good until they are rotten.

We love to overlook the boundaries which we do not wish to pass.

Like an image in a dream the world is troubled by love, hatred, and other poisons. So long as the dream lasts, the image appears to be real; but on awaking it vanishes.

There may be community of material possessions, but there can never be community of love or esteem.

The commodiousness of money is indeed great; but there are some advantages which money cannot buy, and which therefore no wise man will by the love of money be tempted to forego.

Every man is prompted by the love of himself to imagine that he possesses some qualities superior, either in kind or degree, to those which he sees allotted to the rest of the world.

I am willing to love all of mankind, except an American.

The happiness of building lasted but a little while, for though I love to spend, I hate to be cheated; and I soon found, that to build is to be robbed.

Men hate more steadily than they love.

My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.

Some desire is necessary to keep life in motion, and he whose real wants are supplied must admit those of fancy.

We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.

It is observed of gold, by an old epigrammatist, that to have it is to be in fear, and to want it is to be in sorrow.

He that has once concluded it lawful to resist power, when it wants merit, will soon find a want of merit, to justify his resistance to power.

Nature makes us poor only when we want necessaries, but custom gives the name of poverty to the want of superfluities.

Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.

You can't be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who's for you and who's against you.

Very few live by choice. Every man is placed in his present condition by causes which acted without his foresight, and with which he did not always willingly cooperate; and therefore you will rarely meet one who does not think the lot of his neighbor better than his own.

The drama's laws, the drama's patrons give. For we that live to please, must please to live.

(Adversity is) the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, being especially free from admirers then.

Adversity has ever been considered as the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself, being free from flatterers.