2,116 Quotes by Samuel Johnson

No cause more frequently produces bashfulness than too high an opinion of our own importance. He that imagines an assembly filled with his merit, panting with expectation, and hushed with attention, easily terrifies himself with the dread of disappointing them, and strains his imagination in pursuit of something that may vindicate the veracity of fame, and show that his reputation was not gained by chance.

Languages are the pedigree of nations.

None but a fool worries about things he cannot influence.

The most fatal disease of friendship is gradual decay.

To tell your own secrets is generally folly, but that folly is without guilt; to communicate those with which we are intrusted is always treachery, and treachery for the most part combined with folly.

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.

The love of fame is a passion natural and universal, which no man, however high or mean, however wise or ignorant, was yet able to despise.

How small of all that human hearts endure/That part which laws or kings can cause or cure.

This was a good dinner enough, to be sure, but it was not a dinner to ask a man to.