2,116 Quotes by Samuel Johnson

Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.

In discussing these exceptions from the course of nature, the first question is, whether the fact be justly stated. That which is strange is delightful, and a pleasing error is not willingly detected.

Cunning differs from wisdom as twilight from open day.

Everything that enlarges the sphere of human powers, that shows man he can do what he thought he could not do, is valuable.

There may be other reasons for a man's not speaking in publick than want of resolution: he may have nothing to say.

The life of a solitary man will be certainly miserable, but not certainly devout.

What we read with inclination makes a much stronger impression. If we read without inclination, half the mind is employed in fixing the attention; so there is but one half to be employed on what we read.

Many of our miseries are merely comparative: we are often made unhappy, not by the presence of any real evil, but by the absence of some fictitious good; of something which is not required by any real want of nature, which has not in itself any power of gratification, and which neither reason nor fancy would have prompted us to wish, did we not see it in the possession of others.

In writing, as in life, faults are endured without disgust when they are associated with transcendent merit, and may be sometimes recommended to weak judgments by the lustre which they obtain from their union with excellence; but it is the business of those who presume to superintend the taste or morals of mankind to separate delusive combinations, and distinguish that which may be praised from that which can only be excused.