2,116 Quotes by Samuel Johnson

Difference of thoughts will produce difference of language. He that thinks with more extent than another, will want words of a larger meaning; he that thinks with more subtilty will seek for terms of more nice discrimination; and where is the wonder, since words are but the images of things, that he who never knew the original should not know the copies?

He who endeavors to please must appear pleased.

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

The business of the poet, said Imlac, is to examine, not the individual, but the species.

Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.

Among those whose reputation is exhausted in a short time by its own luxuriance are the writers who take advantage of present incidents or characters which strongly interest the passions, and engage universal attention. It is not difficult to obtain readers, when we discuss a question which every one is desirous to understand, which is debated in every assembly, and has divided the nation into parties; or when we display the faults or virtues of him whose public conduct has made almost every man his enemy or his friend.

All censure of a man's self is oblique praise. It is in order to show how much he can spare.

Of the innumerable authors whose performances are thus treasured up in magnificent obscurity (in a library), most are forgotten, because they never deserved to be remembered

Few faults of style, whether real or imaginary, excite the malignity of a more numerous class of readers, than the use of hard words.