Samuel Johnson Quotes

Milton, Madam, was a genius that could cut a Colossus from a rock; but could not carve heads upon cherry-stones.

It is as bad as bad can be: it is ill-fed, ill-killed, ill-kept, and ill-drest.

It might as well be said, "Who drives fat oxen should himself be fat."

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.

I never have sought the world; the world was not to seek me.

Sir, there is no settling the point of precedency between a louse and a flea.

A man might write such stuff for ever, if he would abandon his mind to it.

There is a wicked inclination in most people to suppose an old man decayed in his intellects. If a young or middle-aged man, when leaving a company, does not remember where he laid his hat, it is nothing; but if the same inattention is discovered in an old man, people will shrug up their shoulders, and say, "His memory is going."

A man may be so much of every thing, that he is nothing of any thing.

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.

Always, Sir, set a high value on spontaneous kindness. He whose inclination prompts him to cultivate your friendship of his own accord, will love you more than one whom you have been at pains to attach to you.

I have two very cogent reasons for not printing any list of subscribers; — one, that I have lost all the names, — the other, that I have spent all the money.

A jest breaks no bones.

My friend was of opinion that when a man of rank appeared in that character [as an author], he deserved to have his merit handsomely allowed.

Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world.