Samuel Johnson Quotes

Example is always more efficacious than precept.

But it is evident, that these bursts of universal distress are more dreaded than felt; thousands and ten thousands flourish in youth, and wither in age, without the knowledge of any other than domestic evils, and share the same pleasures and vexa­tions, whether their kings are mild or cruel, whether the armies of their country pursue their enemies or retreat before them.

The first years of man must make provision for the last.

Many things difficult to design prove easy to performance.

I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.

The Prince soon found that this was one of the sages whom he should understand less as he heard him longer. He therefore bowed and was silent; and the philosopher, supposing him satisfied and the rest vanquished, rose up and departed with the air of a man that had co-operated with the present system.

Knowledge is more than equivalent to force. The master of mechanicks laughs at strength.

Few things are impossible to diligence and skill.

A man used to vicissitudes is not easily dejected.

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured and little to be enjoyed.

[The poet] must write as the interpreter of nature and the legislator of mankind, and consider himself as presiding over the thoughts and manners of future generations, as a being superior to time and place.

To a poet nothing can be useless.

Nothing ... will ever be attempted, if all possible objections must be first overcome.

"I fly from pleasure," said the prince, "because pleasure has ceased to please; I am lonely because I am miserable, and am unwilling to cloud with my presence the happiness of others."

Ye who listen with credulity to the whispers of fancy, and pursue with eagerness the phantoms of hope; who expect that age will perform the promises of youth, and that the deficiencies of the present day will be supplied by the morrow; attend to the history of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia.