Usually known as Dr. Johnson, is one of the most important literary figures of England: poet, essayist, biographer, lexicographer, is considered by many as the best literary critic in English. Johnson was possessed of great talent and a unique prose style.
Devout Anglican and politically conservative, Dr. Johnson has been described as "undoubtedly the most distinguished man of letters in English history".
Despite the high quality of his work and enormous celebrity in life, Johnson is primarily remembered for being the subject of "the most notable example of biographical art in English letters," namely, the biography written by his friend James Boswell, the Life of Samuel Johnson, which has been inextricably linked. Known for his brilliant conversation, and thanks to its many contemporary biographers are known many anecdotes of Dr. Johnson.
Likewise, his aphoristic style, its philosophy based primarily on common sense, and elegance in writing, have made it the second most cited author in the English language after Shakespeare.
Our collection contains 151 quotes who is written / told by Samuel, under the main topics: Fitness - Marriage.
"When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life; for there is in London all that life can afford"
"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"
"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"
"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"
"Nature has given women so much power that the law has very wisely given them little"
"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"
"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"
"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"
"Classical quotation is the parole of literary men all over the world"
"You hesitate to stab me with a word, and know not - silence is the sharper sword"
"What we hope ever to do with ease, we must learn first to do with diligence"
"There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern"
"No man was ever great by imitation"
"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"
"Disease generally begins that equality which death completes"
"Depend upon it that if a man talks of his misfortunes there is something in them that is not disagreeable to him; for where there is nothing but pure misery there never is any recourse to the mention of it"
"The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning"
"Power is not sufficient evidence of truth"
"It is not true that people are naturally equal for no two people can be together for even a half an hour without one acquiring an evident superiority over the other"
"It is better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than open one's mouth and remove all doubt"
"I had rather see the portrait of a dog that I know, than all the allegorical paintings they can show me in the world"
"Read over your compositions, and when you meet a passage which you think is particularly fine, strike it out"
"Praise, like gold and diamonds, owes its value only to its scarcity"
"Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable"
"What makes all doctrines plain and clear? About two hundred pounds a year. And that which was proved true before, prove false again? Two hundred more"
"Poetry is the art of uniting pleasure with truth"
"No money is better spent than what is laid out for domestic satisfaction"
"Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments"
"Courage is the greatest of all virtues, because if you haven't courage, you may not have an opportunity to use any of the others"
"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"
"There is, indeed, nothing that so much seduces reason from vigilance, as the thought of passing life with an amiable woman"
"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"
"I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read"
"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"
"The true art of memory is the art of attention"
"The return of my birthday, if I remember it, fills me with thoughts which it seems to be the general care of humanity to escape"
"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"
"It is dangerous for mortal beauty, or terrestrial virtue, to be examined by too strong a light. The torch of Truth shows much that we cannot, and all that we would not, see"
"Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement"
"No man will be a sailor who has contrivance enough to get himself into a jail; for being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned... a man in a jail has more room, better food, and commonly better company"
"I have found men to be more kind than I expected, and less just"
"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"
"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"
"You can't be in politics unless you can walk in a room and know in a minute who's for you and who's against you"
"Worth seeing? Yes; but not worth going to see"
"Words are but the signs of ideas"
"Without frugality none can be rich, and with it very few would be poor"
"Wine makes a man more pleased with himself; I do not say it makes him more pleasing to others"
"Wine gives a man nothing... it only puts in motion what had been locked up in frost"
"Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel"
