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“Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.”
Samuel Johnson
“When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.”
Samuel Johnson
“One of the disadvantages of wine is that it makes a man mistake words for thoughts.”
Samuel Johnson
“Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.”
Samuel Johnson
“Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble.”
Samuel Johnson
“Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives.”
Samuel Johnson
“There are minds so impatient of inferiority that their gratitude is a species of revenge, and they return benefits, not because recompense is a pleasure, but because obligation is a pain.”
Samuel Johnson
“Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife; he is always proud of himself as the source of it.”
Samuel Johnson
“Your manuscript is both good and original; but the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.”
Samuel Johnson
“My dear friend, clear your mind of cant.”
Samuel Johnson
“Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life.”
Samuel Johnson
“The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.”
Samuel Johnson
“Nothing will ever be attempted if all possible objections must first be overcome.”
Samuel Johnson
“To love one that is great, is almost to be great one's self.”
Samuel Johnson
“Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen.”
Samuel Johnson
“When making your choice in life, do not neglect to live.”
Samuel Johnson
“The chains of habit are too weak to be felt until they are too strong to be broken.”
Samuel Johnson
“A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.”
Samuel Johnson
“Actions are visible, though motives are secret.”
Samuel Johnson
“It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentionally lying that there is so much falsehood in the world.”
Samuel Johnson
“Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth.”
Samuel Johnson
“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.”
Samuel Johnson
“Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little.”
Samuel Johnson
“Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself.”
Samuel Johnson
“The mind is never satisfied with the objects immediately before it, but is always breaking away from the present moment, and losing itself in schemes of future felicity... The natural flights of the human mind are not from pleasure to pleasure, but from hope to hope.”
Samuel Johnson
“Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others.”
Samuel Johnson
“A fly, Sir, may sting a stately horse and make him wince; but, one is but an insect, and the other is a horse still.”
Samuel Johnson
“I have always considered it as treason against the great republic of human nature, to make any man's virtues the means of deceiving him.”
Samuel Johnson
“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.”
Samuel Johnson
“To keep your secret is wisdom; but to expect others to keep it is folly.”
Samuel Johnson
