2,116 Quotes by Samuel Johnson

Men seldom give pleasure when they are not pleased themselves.

He that never thinks can never be wise.

Integrity without knowledge is weak and useless. Knowledge without integrity is dangerous and dreadful.

I live in the crowd of jollity, not so much to enjoy company as to shun myself.

I have ever since (his wife's death) seemed to myself broken off from mankind; a kind of solitary wanderer in the wild of life, without any direction, or fixed point of view: a gloomy gazer on the world to which I have little relation

A transition from an author's book to his conversation is too often like an entrance into a large city, after a distant prospect. Remotely, we see nothing but spires of temples and turrets of palaces, and imagine it the residence of splendour, grandeur, and magnificence; but when we have passed the gates, we find it perplexed with narrow passages, disgraced with despicable cottages, embarrassed with obstructions, and clouded with smoke.

Life cannot subsist in society but by reciprocal concessions.

Few men survey themselves with so much severity as not to admit prejudices in their own favor.

Advice is seldom welcome. Those who need it most, like it least.