194 Quotes by Samuel Johnson about men

  • Author Samuel Johnson
  • Quote

    If a man could say nothing against a character but what he can prove, history could not be written.

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  • Author Samuel Johnson
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    There is nothing against which an old man should be so much upon his guard as putting himself to nurse.

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  • Author Samuel Johnson
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    Happiness is enjoyed only in proportion as it is known; and such is the state or folly of man, that it is known only by experience of its contrary.

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  • Author Samuel Johnson
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    Every man, however hopeless his pretensions may appear, has some project by which he hopes to rise to reputation; some art by which he imagines that the attention of the world will be attracted; some quality, good or bad, which discriminates him from the common herd of mortals, and by which others may be persuaded to love, or compelled to fear him.

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  • Author Samuel Johnson
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    I remember a passage in Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield," which he was afterwards fool enough to expunge: "I do not love a man who is zealous for nothing.

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  • Author Samuel Johnson
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    It is certain that success naturally confirms in us a favourable opinion of our own abilities. Scarce any man is willing to allot to accident, friendship, and a thousand causes, which concur in every event without human contrivance or interposition, the part which they may justly claim in his advancement. We rate ourselves by our fortune rather than our virtues, and exorbitant claims are quickly produced by imaginary merit.

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  • Author Samuel Johnson
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    The man who is asked by an author what he thinks of his work is put to the torture and is not obliged to speak the truth.

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  • Author Samuel Johnson
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    He that pines with hunger, is in little care how others shall be fed. The poor man is seldom studious to make his grandson rich.

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  • Author Samuel Johnson
  • Quote

    I do not wonder that, where the monastick life is permitted, every order finds votaries, and every monastery inhabitants. Men will submit to any rule, by which they may be exempted from the tyranny of caprice and of chance. They are glad to supply by external authority their own want of constancy and resolution, and court the government of others, when long experience has convinced them of their own inability to govern themselves.

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