Quotes from Samuel Johnson

Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.

Most men think indistinctly, and therefore cannot speak with exactness . . .

To read, write, and converse in due proportions, is, therefore, the business of a man of letters.

As the greatest liar tells more truths than falsehoods, so may it be said of the worst man, that he does more good than evil.

Faction seldom leaves a man honest, however it might find him.

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

It is generally agreed, that few men are made better by affluence or exaltation.

That observation which is called knowledge of the world will be found much more frequently to make men cunning than good.

Pride is a vice, which pride itself inclines every man to find in others, and to overlook in himself

A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything.

As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.

No man was more foolish when he had not a pen in his hand, or more wise when he had

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

It is a maxim that no man was ever enslaved by influence while he was fit to be free.

No man likes to live under the eye of perpetual disapprobation.

Is not a patron one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and, when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help?

Everybody knows worse of himself than he knows of other men.

No man sympathizes with the sorrows of vanity.

Man is a transitory being, and his designs must partake of the imperfections their author.

Men have solicitude about fame; and the greater share they have of it, the more afraid they are of losing it.

Go into the street, and give one man a lecture on morality, and another a shilling, and see which will respect you most.

A man is very apt to complain of the ingratitude of those who have risen far above him.

The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth, by calling imagination to the help of reason.