2,116 Quotes by Samuel Johnson

As the Spanish proverb says, ''He who would bring home the wealth of the Indies, must carry the wealth of the Indies with him.'' So it is in travelling; a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

While an author is yet living, we estimate his powers by his worst performance; and when he is dead, we rate him by his best.

Man is a transitory being, and his designs must partake of the imperfections of their author. To confer duration is not always in our power. We must snatch the present moment, and employ it well, without too much solicitude for the future, and content ourselves with reflecting that our part is performed. He that waits for an opportunity to do much at once, may breathe out his life in idle wishes, and regret, in the last hour, his useless intentions and barren zeal.

Friendship is not always the sequel of obligation....

Women have two weapons - cosmetics and tears

In all pointed sentences, some degree of accuracy must be sacrificed to conciseness.

A man seldom thinks with more earnestness of anything than he does of his dinner.

Every quotation contributes something to the stability or enlargement of language.

Disposition to derision and insult is awakened by the softness to foppery, the swell of insolence, the liveliness of levity, or the solemnity of grandeur; by the sprightly trip, the stately stalk, the formal strut, and the lofty mein; by gestures int