Samuel Johnson Quotes

Such, said Nekayah, is the state of life, none are happy but by the anticipation of change. The change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish it to change again. The world is not yet exhausted. Let me see something tomorrow which I never saw before.

Shakespeare's plays are not in the rigorous and critical sense either tragedies or comedies, but compositions of a distinct kind; exhibiting the real state of sublunary nature, which partakes of good and evil, joy and sorrow, mingled with endless variety of proportion and innumerable modes of combination; and expressing the course of the world, in which the loss of one is the gain of another; in which, at the same time, the reveller is hasting to his wine, and the mourner burying his friend; in which the malignity of one is sometimes defeated by the frolick of another; and many mischiefs and many benefits are done and hindered without design.

There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.

It is necessary to hope... for hope itself is happiness.

A very unclubable man.

APPEARER (APPE'ARER) n.s.[from To appear.]The person that appears. That owls and ravens are ominous appearers, and presignify unlucky events, was an augurial conception.Brown’sVul. Err.

When learning's triumph o'er her barb'rous foes
First reared the stage, immortal Shakespeare rose;
Each change of many-colored life he drew,
Exhausted worlds, and then imagined new:
Existence saw him spurn her bounded reign,
And panting Time toiled after him in vain.

It is man's own fault, it is from want of use, if his mind grows torpid in old age.

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

Here I first mounted a little Highland steed; and if there had been many spectators, should have been somewhat ashamed of my figure in the march. The horses of the Islands, as of other barren countries, are very low: they are indeed musculous and strong, beyond what their size gives reason for expecting; but a bulky man upon one of their backs makes a very disproportionate appearance.

Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of the language.

Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.

"Enlarge my life with multitude of days!"
In health, in sickness, thus the suppliant prays:
Hides from himself his state, and shuns to know
That life protracted is protracted woe.

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.

He is not only dull himself, but the cause of dullness in others.