2,116 Quotes by Samuel Johnson

He who aspires to be a serious wine drinker must drink claret.

At seventy-seven it is time to be earnest.

...a common observation, that few are mended by imprisonment, and that he, whose crimes have made confinement necessary, seldom makes any other use of his enlargement, than to do, with greater cunning, what he did before with less.

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.

We may take Fancy for a companion, but must follow Reason as our guide.

Curiosity, like all other desires, produces pain as well as pleasure.

Nothing is difficult, when gain and honour unite their influence.

Security will produce danger.

He said that few people had intellectual resources sufficient to forgo the pleasures of wine. They could not otherwise contrive how to fill the interval between dinner and supper.