2,116 Quotes by Samuel Johnson

No degree of knowledge attainable by man is able to set him above the want of hourly assistance.

If one was to think constantly of death, the business of life would stand still

As a madman is apt to think himself grown suddenly great, so he that grows suddenly great is apt to borrow a little from the madman.

Every government is perpetually degenerating towards corruption, from which it must be rescued at certain periods by the resuscitation of its first principles, and the re-establishment of its original constitution.

Silence propagates itself, and the longer talk has been suspended, the more difficult it is to find anything to say.

The greatest part of a writer's time is spent in reading in order to write. A man will turn over half a library to make a book.

The Supreme end of education is expert discernment in all things -- the power to tell the good from the bad, the genuine from the counterfeit, and to prefer the good and the genuine to the bad and the counterfeit.

He is no wise man who will quit a certainty for an uncertainty.

What provokes your risibility, Sir? Have I said anything that you understand? Then I ask pardon of the rest of the company.