2,116 Quotes by Samuel Johnson

In order that all men may be taught to speak the truth, it is necessary that all likewise should learn to hear it.

The desires of man increase with his acquisitions.

Whatever professes to benefit by pleasing must please at once. The pleasures of the mind imply something sudden and unexpected; that which elevates must always surprise.

I wish there were some cure, like the lover's leap, for all heads of which some single idea has obtained an unreasonable and irregular possession.

The whole of life is but keeping away the thoughts of death.

No member of society has the right to teach any doctrine contrary to what society holds to be true.

A student may easily exhaust his life in comparing divines and moralists without any practical regard to morals and religion; he may be learning not to live but to reason... while the chief use of his volumes is unthought of, his mind is unaffected, and his life is unreformed.

Riches exclude only one inconvenience,--that is, poverty.

To read, write, and converse in due proportions, is, therefore, the business of a man of letters.