2,116 Quotes by Samuel Johnson

Dictionaries are like watches; the worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true.

If the changes that we fear be thus irresistible, what remains but to acquiesce with silence, as in the other insurmountable distresses of humanity? It remains that we retard what we cannot repel, that we palliate what we cannot cure. Life may be lengthened by care, though death cannot be ultimately defeated: tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration; we have long preserved our constitution, let us make some struggles for our language.

Network: Any thing reticulated or decussated, at equal distances, with interstices between the intersections [....]Reticulated: Made of network; formed with interstitial vacuities.

The fountain of content must spring up in the mind, and he who hath so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition, will waste his life in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief he proposes to remove.

There is no problem the mind of man can set that the mind of man cannot solve.

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.

The noblest prospect which a Scotchman ever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!

Whoever thinks of going to bed before twelve o'clock is a scoundrel.

Justice is my being allowed to do whatever I like. Injustice is whatever prevents my doing so.