2,116 Quotes by Samuel Johnson

My nights are flatulent and unquiet.

Claret is the liquor for boys, port for men; but he who aspires to be a hero must drink brandy.

Why, Sir, if you were to read Richardson for the story, your impatience would be so much fretted that you would hang yourself. But you must read him for the sentiment, and consider the story as only giving occasion to the sentiment.

The pleasures of sudden wonder are soon exhausted, and the mind can only repose on the stability of truth.

Fraud and falsehood only dread examination. Truth invites it.

The next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.

Being in a ship is being in a jail, with the chance of being drowned.

Sir, if you wish to have a just notion of the magnitude of this city, you must not be satisfied with seeing its great streets and squares, but must survey the innumerable little lanes and courts. It is not in the showy evolutions of buildings, but in the multiplicity of human habitations which are crowded together, that the wonderful immensity of London consists.

All this [wealth] excludes but one evil, poverty.