2,116 Quotes by Samuel Johnson

There are charms made only for distant admiration.

Read the book you do honestly feel a wish and curiosity to read.

Your manuscript is both good and original; but the parts that are good are not original, and the parts that are original are not good.

No government power can be abused long. Mankind will not bear it.... There is a remedy in human nature against tyranny, that will keep us safe under every form of government.

Curiosity is, in great and generous minds, the first passion and the last; and perhaps always predominates in proportion to the strength of the contemplative faculties. He who easily comprehends all that is before him, and soon exhausts any single subject, is always eager for new inquiries; and in proportion as the intellectual eye takes in a wider prospect, it must be gratified with variety, by more rapid flights and bolder excursions.

He endearing elegance of female friendship.

I hope I shall never be deterred from detecting what I think a cheat, by the menaces of a ruffian.

A blade of grass is always a blade of grass, whether in one country or another.

He that undervalues himself will undervalue others, and he that undervalues others will oppress them.