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“There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman.”
Samuel Johnson
“You cannot spend money in luxury without doing good to the poor. Nay, you do more good to them by spending it in luxury, than by giving it; for by spending it in luxury, you make them exert industry, whereas by giving it, you keep them idle.”
Samuel Johnson
“All travel has its advantages. If the passenger visits better countries, he may learn to improve his own. And if fortune carries him to worse, he may learn to enjoy it.”
Samuel Johnson
“Life affords no higher pleasure than that of surmounting difficulties, passing from one step of success to another, forming new wishes and seeing them gratified.”
Samuel Johnson
“Every man who attacks my belief, diminishes in some degree my confidence in it, and therefore makes me uneasy; and I am angry with him who makes me uneasy.”
Samuel Johnson
“There are few things that we so unwillingly give up, even in advanced age, as the supposition that we still have the power of ingratiating ourselves with the fair sex.”
Samuel Johnson
“Surely a long life must be somewhat tedious, since we are forced to call in so many trifling things to help rid us of our time, which will never return.”
Samuel Johnson
“Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost.”
Samuel Johnson
“I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world.”
Samuel Johnson
“He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage.”
Samuel Johnson
“There are few ways in which a man can be more innocently employed than in getting money.”
Samuel Johnson
“Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again.”
Samuel Johnson
“No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money.”
Samuel Johnson
“What is easy is seldom excellent.”
Samuel Johnson
“Love is only one of many passions.”
Samuel Johnson
“Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?”
Samuel Johnson
“Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.”
Samuel Johnson
“The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.”
Samuel Johnson
“It is reasonable to have perfection in our eye that we may always advance toward it, though we know it can never be reached.”
Samuel Johnson
“Those who attain any excellence, commonly spend life in one pursuit; for excellence is not often gained upon easier terms.”
Samuel Johnson
“A man will turn over half a library to make one book.”
Samuel Johnson
“Life is not long, and too much of it must not pass in idle deliberation how it shall be spent.”
Samuel Johnson
“The two offices of memory are collection and distribution.”
Samuel Johnson
“He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.”
Samuel Johnson
“It is better to live rich than to die rich.”
Samuel Johnson
“No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction.”
Samuel Johnson
“The advice that is wanted is commonly not welcome and that which is not wanted, evidently an effrontery.”
Samuel Johnson
“Dictionaries are like watches, the worst is better than none and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.”
Samuel Johnson
“Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and... the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.”
Samuel Johnson
“No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.”
Samuel Johnson