2,116 Quotes by Samuel Johnson

Exercise is labor without weariness.

Wisdom and virtue are by no means sufficient, without the supplemental laws of good-breeding, to secure freedom from degenerating into rudeness, or self esteem from swelling into insolence. A thousand incivilities may be committed, and a thousand offices neglected. without any remorse of conscience, or reproach from reason.

Commerce however we may please ourselves with the contrary opinion, is one of the daughters of fortune, inconstant and deceitful as her mother. She chooses her residence where she is least expected, and shifts her abode when her continuance is, in appearance, most firmly settled.

To dread no eye and to suspect no tongue is the great prerogative of innocence--an exemption granted only to invariable virtue.

The great end of prudence is to give cheerfulness to those hours which splendor cannot gild, and acclamation cannot exhilarate.

New arts are long in the world before poets describe them; for they borrow everything from their predecessors, and commonly derive very little from nature or from life.

Among the calamities of war may be justly numbered the diminution of the love of truth by falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages. A peace will equally leave the warrior and the relater of wars destitute of employment; and I know not whether more is to be dreaded from streets filled with soldiers accustomed to plunder, or from garrets filled with scribblers accustomed to lie.

When I was as you are now, towering in the confidence of 21, little did I suspect that I should be at 49, what I now am.

Admiration begins where acquaintance ceases