Continued Insights from Samuel Johnson

"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"

"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"

"By seeing London, I have seen as much of life as the world can show"

"Bounty always receives part of its value from the manner in which it is bestowed"

"Books that you carry to the fire, and hold readily in your hand, are most useful after all"

"Books like friends, should be few and well-chosen"

"Between falsehood and useless truth there is little difference. As gold which he cannot spend will make no man rich, so knowledge which cannot apply will make no man wise"

"Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned"

"Bachelors have consciences, married men have wives"

"Friendship, like love, is destroyed by long absence, though it may be increased by short intermissions"

"Few enterprises of great labor or hazard would be undertaken if we had not the power of magnifying the advantages we expect from them"

"Exercise is labor without weariness"

"He that will enjoy the brightness of sunshine, must quit the coolness of the shade"

"He that undervalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them"

"He that fails in his endeavors after wealth or power will not long retain either honesty or courage"

"Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance"

"Getting money is not all a man's business: to cultivate kindness is a valuable part of the business of life"

"It generally happens that assurance keeps an even pace with ability"

"Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless, and knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful"

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

"If your determination is fixed, I do not counsel you to despair. Few things are impossible to diligence and skill. Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance"

"If pleasure was not followed by pain, who would forbear it?"

"Love is only one of many passions"

"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"

"Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions"

"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"

"Let me smile with the wise, and feed with the rich"

"Leisure and curiosity might soon make great advances in useful knowledge, were they not diverted by minute emulation and laborious trifles"

"Language is the dress of thought"

"It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality"

"A am a great friend of public amusements, they keep people from vice"

"Adversity leads us to think properly of our state, and so is most beneficial to us"

"Adversity has ever been considered the state in which a man most easily becomes acquainted with himself"

"A man ought to read just as inclination leads him, for what he reads as a task will do him little good"

"A man of genius has been seldom ruined but by himself"

"A man may be so much of everything that he is nothing of anything"

"A wise man will make haste to forgive, because he knows the true value of time, and will not suffer it to pass away in unnecessary pain"

"A wise man is cured of ambition by ambition itself; his aim is so exalted that riches, office, fortune and favour cannot satisfy him"

"A man will turn over half a library to make one book"

"A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority"

"Almost every man wastes part of his life attempting to display qualities which he does not possess"

"Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those who we cannot resemble"

"Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?"

"All theory is against freedom of the will; all experience for it"

"All the arguments which are brought to represent poverty as no evil show it evidently to be a great evil"

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Inspiring Quotes by Samuel Johnson - Page 3