2,116 Quotes by Samuel Johnson

Distance has the same effect on the mind as on the eye.

I know not why any one but a schoolboy in his declamation should whine over the Commonwealth of Rome, which grew great only by the misery of the rest of mankind. The Romans, like others, as soon as they grew rich, grew corrupt; and in their corruption sold the lives and freedoms of themselves, and of one another.

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments; any enlargement of wishes is therefore equally destructive to happiness with the diminution of possession, and he that teaches another to long for what he never shall obtain is no less an enemy to his quiet than if he had robbed him of part of his patrimony.

A writer only begins a book. A reader finishes it.

If you are idle, be not solitary; if you are solitary be not idle.

A man ought to read just as inclination leads him; for what he reads as a task will do him little good.

I never desire to converse with a man who has written more than he has read.

You can never be wise unless you love reading.

The only end of writing is to enable readers better to enjoy life or better to endure it.