Samuel Johnson Quotes

The endearing elegance of female friendship.

It matters not how a man dies, but how he lives. The act of dying is not of importance, it lasts so short a time.

Do not suffer life to stagnate, it will grow muddy for want of motion; commit yourself again to the current of the world.

To let friendship die away by negligence and silence, is certainly not wise. It is voluntarily to throw away one of the greatest comforts of this weary pilgrimage.

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

Nothing has more retarded the advancement of learning than the disposition of vulgar minds to ridicule and vilify what they cannot comprehend.

Read over your compositions, and wherever you meet with a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out.

Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.

A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected.

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.

He was a very good hater.

No, Sir, claret is the liquor for boys; port, for men: but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.

Why, Sir, you find no man, at all intellectual, who is willing to leave London. No, Sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford.

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it; for, however absurd it may be thought to boast an honour by an act which shows that it was conferred without merit, yet most men seem rather inclined to confess the want of virtue than of importance.

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.