2,116 Quotes by Samuel Johnson

Those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt.

What is easy is seldom excellent.

The true effect of genuine politeness seems to be rather ease than pleasure.

Wickedness is always easier than virtue; for it takes the short cut to everything.

It is a maxim that no man was ever enslaved by influence while he was fit to be free.

Commerce can never be at a stop while one man wants what another can supply; and credit will never be denied, while it is likely to be repaid with profit.

To proceed from one truth to another, and connect distant propositions by regular consequences, is the great prerogative of man

Words too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet. From those sounds which we hear on small or on coarse occasions, we do not easily receive strong impressions, or delightful images; and words to which we are nearly strangers, whenever they occur, draw that attention on themselves which they should transmit to other things.

Remember that nothing will supply the want of prudence, and that negligence and irregularity long continued will make knowledge useless, wit ridiculous, and genius contemptible.