2,116 Quotes by Samuel Johnson

Sir, it is wrong to stir up law-suits; but when once it is certain that a law-suit is to go on, there is nothing wrong in a lawyer's endeavouring that he shall have the benefit, rather than another.

The poor and the busy have no leisure for sentimental sorrow.

When once a man has made celebrity necessary to his happiness, he has put it in the power of the weakest and most timorous malignity, if not to take away his satisfaction, at least to withhold it. His enemies may indulge their pride by airy negligence and gratify their malice by quiet neutrality.

Life has no pleasure higher or nobler than that of friendship.

Bravery has no place where it can avail nothing.

Mutual complacency is the atmosphere of conjugal love.

It is astonishing that any man can forbear enquiring seriously whether there is a God; whether God is just; whether this life is the only state of existence.

Books have always a secret influence on the understanding.

Man alone is born crying, lives complaining, and dies disappointed.