147 Quotes By Samuel Johnson


A am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice.
Samuel Johnson on great

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 on great

No man was ever great by imitation.
Samuel Johnson on great

All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil.
Samuel Johnson on great

There are goods so opposed that we cannot seize both, but, by too much prudence, may pass between them at too great a distance to reach either.
Samuel Johnson on great

He who waits to do a great deal of good at once will never do anything.
Samuel Johnson on great

Small debts are like small shot they are rattling on every side, and can scarcely be escaped without a wound: great debts are like cannon of loud noise, but little danger.
Samuel Johnson on great

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.
Samuel Johnson on great

He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.
Samuel Johnson on happiness

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.
Samuel Johnson on happiness

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 on happiness

Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.
Samuel Johnson on happiness

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.
Samuel Johnson on happiness

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.
Samuel Johnson on happiness

There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.
Samuel Johnson on happiness

There is nothing, Sir, too little for so little a creature as man. It is by studying little things that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.
Samuel Johnson on happiness

There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern... No, Sir there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.
Samuel Johnson on happiness

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.
Samuel Johnson on home

Prepare for death, if here at night you roam, and sign your will before you sup from home.
Samuel Johnson on home

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 on hope