2,116 Quotes by Samuel Johnson

In traveling, a man must carry knowledge with him, if he would bring home knowledge.

A man who has not been in Italy, is always conscious of an inferiority, from his not having seen what it is expected a man should see

...it will not always happen that the success of a poet is proportionate to his labor.

About things on which the public thinks long it commonly attains to think right.

Sir, I think all Christians, whether Papists or Protestants, agree in the essential articles, and that their differences are trivial, and rather political than religious.

Here lies our good Edmund, whose genius was such, We scarcely can praise it or blame it too much; Who, born for the Universe, narrowed his mind, And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.

A patriot is he whose public conduct is regulated by one single motive, the love of his country; who, as an agent in parliament, has, for himself, neither hope nor fear, neither kindness nor resentment, but refers every thing to the common interest

This mournful truth is ev'rywhere confess'd,- Slow rises worth by poverty depress'd

You need a good editor because every writer thinks he can write a War and Peace, but by the time he gets it on paper, it's not War and Peace anymore; it's comic-book stuff. Your manuscript is both good and original. But the part that is good is not original, and the part that is original is not good.