2,116 Quotes by Samuel Johnson

Health is so necessary to all the duties, as well as pleasures of life, that the crime of squandering it is equal to the folly.

Every man is rich or poor according to the proportion between his desires and his enjoyments.

Depend upon it, sir, it is when you come close to a man in conservation that you discover what his real abilities are; to make a speech in a public assembly is a knack.

Riches are of no value in themselves; their use is discovered only in that which they procure.

As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man upon easier terms than I was formerly.

It is very common for us to desire most what we are least qualified to obtain.

A family ... is a little kingdom, torn with factions and exposed to revolutions.

He that condemns himself to compose on a stated day will often bring to his task attention dissipated, a memory embarrassed, an imagination overwhelmed, a mind distracted with anxieties, a body languishing with disease: he will labour on a barren topic till it is too late to change it; or, in the ardour of invention, diffuse his thoughts into wild exuberance, which the pressing hour of publication cannot suffer judgment to examine or reduce.

To wipe all tears from off all faces is a task too hard for mortals; but to alleviate misfortunes is often within the most limited power: yet the opportunities which every day affords of relieving the most wretched of human beings are overlooked and neglected with equal disregard of policy and goodness.