2,116 Quotes by Samuel Johnson

It is easy for a man who sits idle at home, and has nobody to please but himself, to ridicule or censure the common practices of mankind.

It is indeed not easy to distinguish affectation from habit; he that has once studiously developed a style, rarely writes afterwards with complete ease.

Except during the nine months before he draws his first breath, no man manages his affairs as well as a tree. We are inclined to believe those whom we do not know because they have never deceived us.

Now ... that you are going to marry, do not expect more from life, than life will afford.

The equity of Providence has balanced peculiar sufferings with peculiar enjoyments.

To buried merit rise the tardy bust.

No man was ever great by imitation.

Leave to Heaven the measure and the choice.

Every man is of importance to himself, and, therefore, in his own opinion, to others; and, supposing the world already acquainted with his pleasures and his pains, is perhaps the first to publish injuries or misfortunes which had never been known unless related by himself, and at which those that hear them will only laugh, for no man sympathises with the sorrows of vanity.