Samuel Johnson Quotes

English writer and lexicographer (1709–1784)

Samuel Johnson (18 September 1709 [7 September O.S.] – 13 December 1784) was a British author, linguist and lexicographer. He is often referred to as simply Dr. Johnson in the history of literature and is regarded as the greatest man of letters in English history.

From: Wikiquote (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Alternative Names: Dr Johnson • Dr. Johnson • Great Moralist

From Wikidata (CC0)

How small, of all that human hearts endure,
That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.
Still to ourselves in every place consign'd,
Our own felicity we make or find:

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 had done all that I could, and no Man is well pleased to have his all neglected, be it ever so little.

Language is the dress of thought.

In order that all men may be taught to speak truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.

Quotation is the highest compliment you can pay an author.

The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.

Marriage has many pains, but celibacy has no pleasures.

Mankind have a great aversion to intellectual labor; but even supposing knowledge to be easily attainable, more people would be content to be ignorant than would take even a little trouble to acquire it.

No weakness of the human mind has more frequently incurred animadversion, than the negligence with which men overlook their own faults, however flagrant, and the easiness with which they pardon them, however frequently repeated.

men do not suspect faults which they do not commit

That we must all die, we always knew; I wish I had remembered it sooner.

Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.

Our minds, like our bodies, are in continual flux; something is hourly lost, and something acquired... Do not suffer life to stagnate; it will grow muddy for want of motion: commit yourself again to the current of the world.